


Disappearing Act

by teacupsandspoons



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Depression, Eating Disorders, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 31,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupsandspoons/pseuds/teacupsandspoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a particularly distressing case, John notices Sherlock is acting strange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seeing Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, this is one of my first works, so any and all feedback is welcome so I can get better! Some of this could be triggering so read the tags and take care of yourself.
> 
> I'm also struggling on how to move the story along, when making progress on mental illness seems to be very stop and start one step forward two steps back. Also, i'm struggling to just write the dialogue and not write all the little thoughts and tiny movements of each of the characters. Conversations like this have so much going on under the surface, but I don't want the story to get bogged down. If anybody has writting advice it would be very welcome.

“Sherlock, come out here.” John shouted down the hall. He had made spaghetti and meatballs, and was going to try and get Sherlock to eat without a fight.

Ever since the Ablertine murders, John had noticed something off about Sherlock’s eating habits. Well John had noticed something off with Sherlock’s eating habits since the very first case, but recently things had been more off. At first, John didn’t think much of it when Sherlock didn’t want to eat, saying he was busy, that he had already eaten, or was on a case. John had heard such protests often enough from the detective, so he didn’t worry. With the harrowing case finally over, John went back to the clinic while Sherlock worked cold cases down at the station. Around the house the detective seemed constantly discontented, which was nothing new, but he seemed pensive rather than bored. The weirdest thing was that he stayed quiet rather than driving John up the wall. He would spend so much time in his room sometimes John would hardly see him for days. John was concerned, but then they would work a case together, and he would see Sherlock in action, happy to be working, and it would assure him that things were totally normal. Perhaps Sherlock was looking a bit thin, but the berk was always like.

Three months after the Ablertine murders, John had a week with only one shift at the clinic and Sherlock didn’t have any cases so they were both around the flat. Once again, John to noticed that Sherlock wasn’t eating. It wasn’t his normal lapses in nutrition, in the whole week that John watched Sherlock he had only seen him drink milky tea, and eat four crackers. When John offered Sherlock food, the detective casually shrugged off. John didn’t push it, bu he was starting to worry, wondering what was going on. Then John had walked by the bathroom one morning and saw Sherlock shaving, his shirt hanging on the hook behind him. John did a double take. Sherlock was emaciated! John had noticed the detectives weight loss but he had no idea how far it had gone. He wondered how he couldn’t have seen it. Sherlock was almost always walking around the house in various states of undress, but now John couldn’t think of the last time he had seen Sherlock without a shirt and jacket on. It must have been ages ago for him to have lost so much weight, without John seeing. The detectives sternum and ribs were clearly visible. When he turned his head to shave down the side of his neck the sinewy tendons jumped out underneath the thin flesh. Looking at his face, John now saw how gaunt Sherlock had become, how his usually faltering cheekbones poked out under his skin. John couldn’t believe he had missed this. Something was going on, something serious.

Sherlock noticed that John was standing in the hall looking at him. He stepped back from the mirror and turned to John giving him a curious look.

“What is it?” He said plucking his shirt off the hook and slipping it on, quickly returned to what looked like a fairly normal Sherlock Holmes.

“Nothing,” John replied still shocked and not sure what to say, “It’s just you have gotten quite thin.”

Sherlock huffed out a annoyed laugh, “No need to look so worried John. I thought you had something important you needed to tell me.”

With that he closed the bathroom door and John heard the zip of trousers and the sound of the man relieving himself. Clearly the conversation was over.


	2. Strike a Match

That was yesterday. This morning John had seen Sherlock eating a biscuit with his tea but later saw half of it in the trash. The detective had been in his room ever since. John put the plates of spaghetti on the table and shouted again, “Sherlock!” He heard Sherlock’s bedroom door open and Sherlock stalk down the hall before he turned the corner and leaned against the door frame.

“What?” Sherlock snapped.

“I’ve made dinner.” John replied.

“It’s a shame I’m busy, then.” Sherlock said as he started to turn away.

“You are not busy! You haven’t had a case in over a week, and you are just sitting in your room mopeing. You need to eat something.”

John saw Sherlock’s eyes harden as he crossed his arms across his chest. John could tell it was going to be an argument, yet Sherlock’s voice was calm when he said.  

“I’m not hungry.”

“What are you talking about you haven’t been eating for days, or course you’re hungry.”

“I had a biscuit this morning.”

“You threw most of it away! What’s the problem anyway? Just sit down and eat some pasta, you don’t have a case.”

Sherlock did not respond, his eyes slid off johns face and onto the floor.

“Sherlock what is going on?” John pleaded.

“Nothing is going on other than you pestering me to consume an alarming amount of pasta!” Sherlock spat. John looked down felt heat rise in his throat, something was going on, they argued all the time, but there was something in Sherlock's voice, and in the past Sherlock had always succumed to John’s gentle urges to eat something. In the past if John put a plate in front of a preoccupied Sherlock, he would nibble. Why wouldn’t he eat now?

“Sherlock, you need to eat.” John whispered. He looked back up at Sherlock to see his fists clenched and a panicked expression on his face. “Sherlock?” John said stepping towards the man in concern, but Sherlock jumped back. John backed away.

Sherlock breathed heavily, “No.”

John balked, “No? No what?”

But Sherlock was turning and walking down the hall. John followed, “No what, Sherlock?” he called after him.Sherlock had grabbed his coat and was leaving the flat. John, tried to follow quickly but by the time John had gotten his shoes on and ran outside the detective was out of sight. “fucking hell, SHERLOCK!” John called, but Sherlock was gone.

John trudged back into the flat and slumped into his chair. He was confused, annoyed, but mostly worried, what the hell was going on? He thought maybe he should call Mycroft, but he knew that would do nothing to ingratiate him to the detective who was clearly not very happy with him at the moment. John would give Sherlock two hours, and if he wasn’t back by then he was calling Mycroft.


	3. Counting

Sherlock wasn’t sure when it had started. The desire to disappear, he supposed it was in high school. At the time any attention he received was negative, often physical. But truly it started long before that. Even as a young child Sherlock preferred to stay inside and bury himself in a book, he would often hide to avoid the attention of his parents, because he didn’t like the inane games they wanted to play with him. He didn’t know how to act around people. He could tell by the way they looked at him, when he had said something wrong. While he excelled in so many areas, around people he was lost. They made him uncomfortable. So he mostly wanted to be left to himself, left to his thoughts.

It was, however, in school that he learned that the best way to keep from being beaten was to be totally unremarkable. His clothes, his appearance, he tried to make everything about himself invisible, but he couldn’t hide his mind, he couldn’t always keep his damn mouth shut. They hated him because he was smarter than all of them. When he felt vulnerable he spat razor sharp deductions, which didn’t gain him any favors. He learned to hide in a crowd, he never ate lunch in the cafeteria, and soon he hardly ate at all, there was hardly ever anyone at home to pester him to do so. He found that he didn’t want to be seen, because everyone saw him as a freak. He didn’t want to see himself, so he shrunk himself. He enjoyed the feeling of lightheadedness and distraction, it took the edge off the harsh noise of school. He loved the feeling of being swallowed in his layers of clothes, it made him feel safe. Most of all he loved that he was in control. He kept the numbers of calories and pounds constantly ticking in his head, he was the master of his own destiny, he had conquered his body with his mind.

No one really noticed he was starving until he passed out running up the stairs. His mother suddenly took an intense interest in his health, but he was leaving for university at the end of the week, and to assuage her worries he only had to force himself through a few home cooked meals, which he promptly dealt with in the bathroom.

Then he was at uni, and it wasn’t long before he started in on the drugs. Once he was shooting up, he stopped worrying about food all together. He still managed to graduate with perfect marks, and use his intelligence to instill fear in anyone who tried to confront him. It was true that his drug use never totally consumed his life, he did, have incredibly strong self control after all.  

When he got clean, he was once again confronted with his hunger, his desire to eat that had been killed by drugs for years. He was reminded of the overwhelming noise that he used to numb with hunger before he found cocaine and heroin. With his hunger came the voice he had forgotten. The voice that whispered, no one wants to see you, you don’t deserve space, shrink yourself, disappear, don’t eat. But Sherlock wasn’t in school anymore, he was an adult, he was starting a career with the police, so he pushed the voice aside and do what he needed to. The voice never really went away. The calories and pounds were always ticking in the back of his brain, but he could mostly ignore it. He was smart enough to know the amount of food he needed to eat to keep from damaging his health, to keep functioning. He never became an avid eater, but when necessary he did refuel his transport as it were.

He made an exception for cases. It was not so much the eating that slowed him down, but the thoughts about eating, the thoughts that would otherwise be mildly annoying, were intrusive and distracting when he was trying to singularly focus on the case. He couldn’t abide the additional frustration, the self doubt. But that was his only exception, and he never got so thin as to severely endanger himself, so people, namely Mycroft, didn’t bother him about it.


	4. Comming Loose

That was until John watson. John was a doctor, and had an absurd obsession with things like eating and sleeping and not smoking, but for some reason Sherlock liked him. Liked him more than he had ever liked anyone really, since there weren’t really any people he liked much at all. Sherlock would eat when John told him too, and found that when John was there, he could block out the voice, and eventually the voice went away. He trusted John to feed him, which was to say he trusted John completely. The voice had stayed away for two years.

But then there were the Ablertine murders. Six young mothers murdered within two weeks. Sherlock had been brought in after the second. Lestrade was pulling out his hair while each new lead Sherlock followed uncovered not the murderer, but another victim's corpse. By the time Sherlock found the sixth victim, he was losing his cool, lack of sleep, low blood sugar and frustration were driving Sherlock to the edge.

Returning once again empty handed to the flat, he left John in the doorway and proceeded straight into his bedroom slamming the door behind him “You fucking useless idiot, why can’t you just think!” He shouted, punching the wall with a sickening cracking sound. The pain in his hand whited out his mind, as he stood there panting and staring at the dent he had just created. He heard John shifting his weight from one foot to the other outside of his bedroom door, but thankfully the doctor knew better than to come in. Sherlock flopped onto his bed and pressed his palms into his eyes, his injured hand throbbing hot against his temple. He tried so hard to think. What was he missing?

Down at the station people thought he was cold, that he didn’t care about the victims, but it simply wasn’t true. He just kept it in his head, feelings of sadness, of vulnerability, it would only hurt the case. That day he had made a witness cry before John had pulled him away and hissed, “What is wrong with you? Do you really think that is helpful? Productive? Jesus I can’t believe you’re that insensitive.”  

He ground his fists into his eye sockets. He had let John down. More than usual. he was always letting John down. he shook his head. In his mind palace he tried to start at the beginning of the murders, but thoughts kept barging in. You are incompetent. Useless, all that you do is solve cases and now you are failing. Cases are the only reason anyone likes you at all, without them you would be totally alone. Nobody loves you, nobody even likes you. People hate you, you are abrasive and unfriendly. Nobody wants to see a freak like you. Nobody wants to share space with a freak like you. Nobody wants to see you, people hate you in their space. You don’t even want to see you. Do you enjoy this feeling? Feeling of failure. No. Disappear. It would make everyone happier. It would make you happier. Sherlock recognized that voice. He had hoped that since meeting John, since having a friend, he would never have hear the voice again, but there it was scratching on his mind again. He tried to ignore it, tried to focus on the case.

Exhaustion got the better of him, and he fell into a restless dreams of murdered mothers and food. The next day Lestade kicked him off the case after he yelled at the latest victim’s sister. Sherlock of course continued on his own. Two days later, he discovered the seventh and last victim, shot through the chest. The murderer Jeffrey Ablertine, lay next to her having shot himself through the roof of the mouth.

John said at least it was over, that they could get some rest now. Sherlock nodded but inside his head the voice told him to slow, to late, to stupid, useless, fat... disappear. He hoped that he would feel better after he slept and got some food in him, but after he slept he didn’t feel much like eating. The counter had started in his head counting calories, weighing pounds. he couldn’t shut it off. In the following weeks he took cases, watched television with John, and acted like normal self. He didn’t want to let anyone see what he was seeing, if they did they would surely be disgusted.

Long after John went to bed Sherlock would stand in his pants and stare at himself in the mirror. He would think first of his failures, his stupidity, his inability to interact with normal people, his weakness, but then his thoughts shifted into his muscles and skin, how uncomfortable his flesh felt on his body. He could feel each bite he had eaten sticking to his bones. He would grip tiny bits of fat on his arms and stomach and feel them like thick slabs in his palms. He would stare at himself in the mirror, and though each day he ate less his reflection seemed to balloon.

Logically he knew that he was on the thinner side of normal, but what he saw was great rolls of flesh. He was a man who trusted his eyes, but now they were failing him, or his mind was failing him. Something was failing him. He was failing, and frustrated from trying to reconcile the contradicting data. He gave up trying to sparse it, and understood himself as the anomaly. He could remain fat while the scales told him he was dropping off the edge of healthy. He knew what he saw, he saw a worthless disgusting man, who couldn’t control himself, couldn’t behave properly around others, couldn’t manage his transport. But he took control. He didn’t eat. Well practically, he would occasionally make himself a milky tea or eat a cracker when his head starting pounding and he saw black spots floating in his vision, but even that he punished himself for doing endless pushups and crunches while the voice told him you’re nothing, take control, overcome weakness. Then he would get up off the floor, got dressed and face the world, face John. Sherlock hid any signs of distress under his disinterested effect, and if that didn’t work a cruel deduction did the trick.


	5. Caught Out

One night Sherlock was shaving in the bathroom, shirtless, it was less messy that way, when John stopped and looked at him. Sherlock felt his skin prickle, he had been more careful about being dressed in the flat, not wanting John to have to look at him, but he had forgotten to close the door, and now John was staring at him. He pretended not to notice, and he forced his hand steady finishing the last stroke before he turned to John and picked up his shirt, putting it on as quickly as possible without looking rushed.

“What?” He said noting the confused, or was is shocked look on John’s face.

“Nothing, It’s just you have gotten quite thin.” John said. Sherlock was taken aback.

Confused, he laughed.

“No need to look so worried John, I thought you had something important you needed to tell me.” He closed the door in John’s face.

He could hear that John was still outside the door so Sherlock opened his fly and relieved himself, hoping that it would make John go away. When John finally walked off, Sherlock turned to sit on the toilet. Why would John say something like that?  Was he mocking Sherlock? Sherlock had thought the doctor was above making sarcastic comments on others appearances. Had John noticed that Sherlock wasn’t eating? Was he telling Sherlock he looked thin so that he might give into the doctor’s obsession with regular meals. “For fuck sake,” Sherlock thought, “you could be three hundred pounds and John would still urge you to eat regularly.” That must be it, it was just a new level of John’s pestering. Sherlock was worried that John’s concern would mean more scrutiny that he could bear. He didn’t want John to see what a wrecked and horrible thing he had become. Shaking his head he stood from the toilet. No. He had shrugged John off easily enough before. He would just continue to do so and things would return to normal. And he would be more careful to close the door next time.

The next day, Sherlock had returned from his walk, a habit he had just taken up, for several hours each morning, around 8 am.

“Where have you been?” inquired a sleepy John as he closed the door to the flat behind him.

“I didn’t think you would be up yet,” Sherlock responded pointedly not answering Johns question.

“A car alarm went off,” John responded knowing that it was no use to ask again. Feeling John’s eyes on him as he made himself a cup of tea, Sherlock made a point of taking out a biscuit and biting into it, before discretely dropping the other half into the trash on the way to his room. Closing the door behind him he flopped onto his bed without even taking his shoes off. He had been feeling so tired recently, he must be getting lazy.

He didn’t realize how long he had been lying in bed lost in his thoughts until John called, “Sherlock, come out here.” He looked at the clock on his bedside table and saw that it was already seven. The faint smell of tomato told him that John was planning on feeding him a pasta dinner. Sherlock rubbed his palms into his eyes, he didn’t want to deal with this now. In fact, he didn’t want to deal with it ever. He would just ignore it. Five minutes later John called again, and Sherlock decided it would be best to go out and give John some excuse so that he would stop bothering him.

When Sherlock reached the kitchen, he snapped “What?” pretending he didn’t already knew what John wanted.

“I’ve made dinner.” John replied, stating the obvious as always.

“It’s a shame I’m busy then.” Sherlock said as he pushed himself off the doorframe.

John stopped him, “You are not busy you haven’t had a case in over a week and you are just sitting in your room moping. You need to eat something.”

So it was going to be like this was it? Sherlock refused to cave. He looked John dead in the eye, “I’m not hungry.”

“What are you talking about,” John balked, “You haven’t been eating for days, or course you’re hungry.” So John had been watching him then.

“I had a biscuit this morning.”

“You threw most of it away, what’s the problem anyway just sit down and eat some pasta. You don’t have a case.” Oh god. John knew. John knew what Sherlock was, a pathetic freak that couldn’t control anything other than what went into his body.

“Sherlock what is going on?” John asked.

“Nothing is going on other than you pestering me to consume an alarming amount of pasta!” Sherlock spat. He stiffened his spine, sucked in his stomach trying to put as many millimeters of space between himself and John as possible without moving his feet.

“Sherlock, you need to eat.” John whispered. John must be able to see what Sherlock looked like. Could he see the fat? He must, but he wanted to feed Sherlock anyway. He wanted to take away the last thing Sherlock could control. Why had Sherlock ever trusted him? He had thought they were friends. He was clenching his fists so hard his knuckles were turning white.

John stepped towards him, saying, “Sherlock?”

Sherlock jumped back breathing heavily, “No!”

He wouldn’t eat John’s pasta, he couldn’t. John couldn’t make him. Then Sherlock was running to the door with John calling after him. He grabbed his coat and was out of the flat and running down the street before john even had put on his first shoe.


	6. Run

Sherlock’s thoughts were racing as fast as his feet moved below him. How had things gotten so out of hand? Not an hour ago he had been in bed, convinced he could easily carry on as he had been, but now John was involved. John could see what Sherlock could see. He must be disgusted. He must think Sherlock so pathetic. He must pity him. And he wanted to make him eat. Sherlock couldn’t let that happen.

He had kept an eye on a condo in Lambeth that was maintained by wealthy couple living in Argentina. He noticed there flat while investigating two interesting murders in the neighboring apartment. They had not visited the property in three years, and in Sherlock’s calculation would not visit again for at least another three. But the condo was there, empty and well maintained by a hired house sitter who checked in once a month and occasionally cleaned up the mess that the couple’s wayward son would leave after parties. Anyway, he had filed the information away in his mind palace in case he ever needed a place to stay away from John and Mycroft. He was in saint James Park, so he was already half of the way to the apartment complex. It was quite dark, and starting to get chilly as Sherlock loped along. He was glad he had taken his coat, but regretted not putting on his scarf. He arrived at the building, taking the stairs to the twelfth floor, and picked the lock.


	7. Broken Glass

The door swung into the dark and still apartment. Sherlock closed the door behind him without turning on the lights. He walked into the condo’s kitchen and flicked on a single bulb above the stove, bathing the room in slick yellow light.

Suddenly, he felt too hot, his shirt was too tight. He threw off his coat and jacket and began unbuttoning his shirt before he became impatient and pulled it off over his head. He was breathing hard. From facing John, from the run, he needed to calm down. Through the kitchen door he spotted a bottle of whisky and glasses on a side table in the sitting room. He walked over and poured himself two fingers, downed them, poured another and downed that too. Then seeing as there was only a few ounces left in the bottle he drank the rest.

Suddenly feeling exposed without his shirt he walked back towards his cloths, but stopped where a full length mirror hung beside the kitchen door. He stared at his reflection in the dim yellow light. His skin looked like wax, cold slippery bacon fat. He felt flesh hanging heavy on every bone. He watched as the tissue on his reflection bubbled and oozed around as though there were snakes beneath his skin. He felt like he might be sick, but there was nothing inside of him to cough up. He felt his fat crushing him, suffocating him, he couldn’t take it anymore. He turned away from the mirror, and was reminded of the whisky bottle in his hand as it bumped against his leg.

He swung it up and smashed it across his bare shoulder. In the flash of searing pain the weight was lifted for a moment before falling back onto him. He dragged the bottle from his shoulder across his chest. Feeling the shattered edge cut a swath of slashes in his skin. He dragged the bottle down his arm to his inner wrist before taking the glass in his other hand to create symmetry on his chest. Marking an X across his ribs, and maring his other arm.  He could feel warm blood licking down his skin, and dripping from his fingers as he lifted the bottle and dragged it straight across his stomach, once, twice, three times. Until his whole torso was hot with blood. He dropped the neck of the bottle to the floor and breathed deeply looking down at his body.

He had controle. He had power. A smile split across his face, but as he turned back to the mirror, it was knocked off in shock. Sherlock stumbled back, what he had seen in the mirror minutes before was gone. Now he saw a skeleton, a mockery of a living person. Hollows carved out between the bones, dark caverns hung around his eyes, and his skin was papery thin, and drenched in blood. That couldn’t be him. That couldn’t be what he looked like, could it? Suddenly the pain hit Sherlock, the cuts that had felt hot and electric moments ago now throbbed with pain, his whole body a raw wound.

As if waking from a trance Sherlock grabbed his coat from the kitchen and wrapped it around himself, leaving his jacket and shirt behind. He started running down the stairs of the building and began seeing spots. His vision went black for a moment on the final landing, and he found himself falling into a wall before he was able to right himself. He realized how badly he had injured himself as patches on the front of his coat became dark with blood. He needed medical attention. He pulled out his phone as he walked through the front doors. Half way down the front steps he began to swoon but sat down before he could fall. With shaking fingers he dialed 999 and leaned against the rail. The receiver on the other end picked up.

“Hello, 999, what is your emergency?”

Sherlock opened his eyes, he hadn’t realized he had closed them. He swallowed, “I seemed to have hurt myself quite badly,” he replied.

“And what are the nature of your injuries sir?”

He was feeling light headed, he kept having to open his eyes.

“Hello sir, are you there?” the operator said loudly.

“What? yes.” Sherlock mumbled.

“How badly are you injured sir?”

“mmmhhmm.” Sherlock groaned, he was going to pass out.

“Can you tell me where you are?”

Sherlock tried to respond but he couldn’t seem to get his mouth to move.

“Alright sir, just stay on the line while we track the call.” He slumped against the steps.

“Help is on the way, just stay with me.” As his vision closed in he wondered if he would not survive this, if he might bleed out on the steps in Lambeth. He thought that might not be such a terrible thing to happen.


	8. Watching

It had been an hour and a half since Sherlock had left and John was shifting restlessly in his chain, listening for footsteps on the stairs. Two words kept circling round his head. Eating disorder. But really? Sherlock? The man was so arrogant, so above it all? It was difficult for John to imagine. It was true that the detective was meticulous about his appearance. His clothes his hair, but it was hardly the same. So often John felt that his flatmate was completely divorced from emotion, but everytime he started to wonder if Sherlock was actually an android something would reveal there was more underneath. Eye contact hastily broken, hands withdrawn, sentences never finished. John had wondered before how much there was of Sherlock that he could never see. The man was so guarded, but John would never have thought… Thought the detective might be guarding such a devastating vulnerability. Something like an eating disorder.

John wanted to call Mycroft, but he had told himself he would give Sherlock two hours. He made himself a cup of tea that became cold as he waited for the time to run out. He was dialing as soon as it did.He breathed out slowly while he waited for Mycroft to pick up.

“John, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Sherlock is missing.”

“Oh?”

“Well, not exactly missing. He has only been gone for two hours but he was very upset when he left, and I don’t know where he is or what he is doing.”

“What do you suggest I do about the situation.”

“I don’t know Mycroft! Something. Find him. Make sure he’s alright!”

“John is there a reason you are so concerned, do you think it might be drugs?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know what is going on. I just know something is wrong, and we need to find him.” John was hesitant to tell Mycroft his suspicions. He still didn’t want to betray Sherlock’s trust.

“Alright I will find him, I’ll call you when I do.”

John sighed, “Thank you Mycroft.” but the line was already dead.

 

Mycroft, hung up the phone and walked down the hall, glad there were a few people staying late who could help him with the CCTV. It only took him and a technician whose name he had forgotten a moment to find Sherlock and track him to the apartment building in Lambeth. He had entered the building about an hour previous.

“Fast forward to now. See if he is still there.” Mycroft commanded. The young man complied. Forty minutes into the recording, they watched Sherlock stumble back out of the building. Something was wrong. “Stop, return to normal speed.” They watched as Sherlock stopped and sat on the steps, and then slumped over. The time stamp told them it was twenty minutes ago. “Fast forward again,” Mycroft muttered, keeping the anxiety he was feeling out of his voice. He let out a breath when an ambulance arrived. He pulled his phone.

“John, he was picked up by an ambulance in Lambeth about ten minutes ago. They will be taking him to king’s college hospital.”

“What happened to him?”

“I’m not sure, it seems that he passed out in front of an apartment complex in Lambeth. I don’t know what he was doing there. I’ll have a car outside 221 b to take you to the hospital, within ten minutes, be ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is as far as I have written so far, I'm not exactly sure what I want to do next. I have some short term ideas, but don't know how I want to resolve the whole plot. If you have ideas as to where the story might end up please message me!


	9. Waiting

John was waiting on the steps by the time Mycroft’s car car pulled up outside of 221 Baker Street. He opened the car door and was surprised to see Mycroft sitting in the back of the car. He hadn’t expected to be picked up personally. “You were on the way,” Mycroft told John without looking up from his phone. John got in without a word and they were off before his seat belt was fastened. Mycroft looked up at him, “I’ve gotten through to the hospital. He was picked up with multiple lacerations to his chest arms and stomach. He has lost a substantial amount of blood, at least several pints.” Mycroft’s tone was cold and clinical but a tightness around mouth was enough to tell John that he was seriously worried.

“What happened? Is he going to be ok?” John questioned.

“It appears to be self inflicted, that is all the information I have been able to get so far.”

They sat in silence, Mycroft furiously texting, the rest of the way to the hospital. Once they arrived they were escorted to a waiting room where they waited anxiously for five minutes until a doctor finally came out to speak with them.

“Mr. Holmes?” The doctor didn’t even look at John.

“Yes.” Mycroft responded expectantly.

“He is going to make it,” both men let out a breath. “It was a close in there for a while but he is going to pull through. However, the blood loss was significant, and it will be several hours before we are finished dealing with the lacerations. He may be unconscious for a long time… I have to get back in there.” The doctor finished and walked away.

John sat down. His worst fear past, his thoughts were still swirling about what might have caused Sherlock to do such a thing.

“John,” Mycroft roused him from his thoughts, “Would you please inform me of events preceding Sherlock leaving 221 B tonight?”

“Right, I mean I hardly know where to start,” John floundered. “We were fighting about bloody pasta…” Eating disorder, John thoughts whispered. He needed to ask, but he still felt an absurd loyalty regarding Sherlock’s trust. But for christ sake, Sherlock had almost died, there were bounds of reason. “Has Sherlock ever had a problem with, uh, not eating?” John asked falteringly.  Mycroft leaned back in his chair, thinking.

“There was a time when he was a teenager. He had a bit of a phase, but then he was off at uni, and the drug use started. Lets just say his poor nutritional habits were the least of my worries. When he got clean it no longer seemed to be an issue beyond his general lack of interested in taking care of himself, so I guess I never thought much of it. Why do you ask?”  
“It’s just that recently, well for a while actually, I’ve noticed Sherlock hasn’t really been eating much, and then nothing at all really. He has lost allot of weight, I don’t think he realizes… And then tonight when I offered him dinner. Confronted him about it, I guess. He got so upset, and ran out… and now this. It seems so unlike him.”

“I have come to discover, John, that my brother is nothing but full of surprises.” Mycroft replied wearily. John nodded. The two men sat silently wrapped in their own thoughts as the hours past, finally the doctor returned and sat down across from them.

“Mr. Holms. Your brother has been moved into a room now, but before you go into see him, I feel there are several things you should know. The first is that the doctors working on this case are in agreement that this was a suicide attempt.” He paused for a moment, “Since we don’t know exactly when he will wake up, and we don’t have enough people to have him be constantly monitored, we have chosen to restrain him. At least for the time being.” John felt something inside him protest, but it was a reasonable decision. The doctor continued, “He is also severely underweight, and we have given him a feeding tube at least until he wakes up. We didn’t want to wait until he came round to start getting some calories into him. Once he regains consciousness we will of course reevaluate and move forward from there. Do you have any questions”

Mycroft just shook his head. John spoke up, “Can  we see him now?”

“Of course, follow me.” The doctor replied and set off down the hall. When they got to the room the doctor showed them in and left the two men to stare dumbly at Sherlock. Wrapped from collar to wrist, with ashen skin and dark circles under his eyes, it was impossible not to be reminded of a cheap horror movie mummy. John shook his head, trying not to think about how his friend looked like a desiccated corpse. After several minutes listening to the beeping of Sherlock's heart monitor, Mycroft cleared his throat.

“Perhaps we should sit… At a lack of anything better to be done.”

John nodded his assent and walked to the corner of the room where two chairs leaned against the wall.

“What are we going to do?” John wondered aloud.

“Well first we will have to wait until he wakes up and see what he had to say for himself.  There are of course many programs and courses of treatment for these kinds of things, but I suppose I am of the opinion that if Sherlock is unwilling to undergo such treatment, he will not be helped by such programs, nore be a help to the program. In the past my brother has been able to pull himself up by the bootstraps, as it were. To quit drugs, all that he needed was the proper motivation. Despite the desperate appearance of the situation, I think it could be possible for Sherlock to get back on track on his own,” Mycroft mused. John couldn’t help but be sceptical, it couldn’t possibly be the best course of action to just let Sherlock handle this himself. On the other hand Mycroft was right, if Sherlock didn’t want treatment, which most certainly wouldn’t, there would be no treating him.

John sighed, “And how will we know if it is working?”

“I trust you to look after my brother John, I always have,” Mycroft stated. John felt another pang of guilt for not noticing Sherlock’s state sooner. “I think I will be on my way,” Mycroft continued, “I certainly am not the first person Sherlock will want to see when he wakes up, though, do give me a call when he does come round I wish to speak with him.” With that Mycroft stood, and looked down at Sherlock, letting out a slow sigh before turning and opening the door. “I will see you again in the near future,” Mycroft said closing the door behind him.

John rested his chin on his hand and watched Sherlock’s chest rise and fall, listening to the heart monitor beep. It didn’t take long for the exhaustion to pull him into sleep. 


	10. Chains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everybody! Sorry it has been so long since I have updated, I have been very busy with school and my job, updates may still be a bit few and far between until the summer. But here is a new chapter for you! As always feedback and comments always greatly appreciated.

The first thing Sherlock registered was pain. His whole body ached and his head was throbbing. He heard the beeping of a heart monitor, groaning internally realizing where he was and remembering why he was there. He opened his eyes. Dim morning light came through the window and he wondered how long he had been unconscious. He felt and itching in the back of his throat and realized with disgust that there was a tube through his nose that was most likely dripping calories into his stomach. He wanted to pull the tube out, but when he tried to lift his hand, he discovered that padded cuffs secured his wrists to the sides of his hospital bed. He tugged at the cuff causing the rail to clang, and a dull throb to seep through his wrist reminding him what lay beneath the gauze. There was movement in the corner of the room, and Sherlock’s eyes snapped to a disheveled John Watson, roused from sleep by Sherlock struggling against the cuffs.

“You’re awake.” John said, relieved.

“Clearly. And so are you,” Sherlock responded tersely. John shook his head and looked like he was about to say something when Sherlock cut him off.

“Why am I handcuffed to the bed?” Sherlock demanded.

“Well, since you tried to kill yourself-”

“I did no such thing! Would someone trying to kill themselves call for an ambulance?” Had he tried to kill himself? Not exactly. Not minding if you die is different than trying to kill yourself, right?

John stood up and said, “Really Sherlock?! Then what were you trying to do?” He was clearly upset, though he had no reason to be. He wasn’t the one handcuffed to the bed, he could leave at any time. It was clear from John staring at him pointedly that he expected an answer.

“Well, I can’t really say. I wasn’t in my right mind-”

“Clearly!”

“I mean I had been drinking.”

“Drinking enough to accidentally lacerate yourself so badly that you nearly died of blood loss?”

“Apparently.”

“Do you even know how close you were Sherlock? How many stitches they had to give you? Hundreds! How did you even manage to inflict that much damage?” John’s voice was getting loud and tight. He was clearly trying hard not to shout. He was angry. Sherlock had fucked up. He wasn’t getting out of this one.

“Broken bottle,” Sherlock whispered.

“What?” John said, stepping in closer.

Sherlock spoke louder, trying to sound unaffected, “It was a broken bottle. Really, it was the work of less than a minute, I really didn’t mean for anything like this to happen. I don’t know what came over me.” John gapped at Sherlock, shaking his head. “Really John,” Sherlock continued, “No need to worry, it is not an experience I feel compelled to repeat anytime soon.” John stepped back and sunk into his chair pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I can’t fucking believe you,” John grumbled into his hand. After a moment it didn’t seem life John was going to add to his statement, so Sherlock said, “John. I’m not the kind of man to make the same mistake twice. You know that.” John scrubbed his palms over his eyes before looking up at Sherlock with his hands steepled beneath is chin in typical Sherlockian fashion. John studied him for a moment. “And what about the food?” He said calmly. “What?” Sherlock responded pretending that he didn’t know exactly what John was talking about.

“What about the food, Sherlock,” John repeated loudly, “What about the fact that you haven’t been eating, and are now so malnourished that the doctors felt compelled to put a feeding tube down your nose!?”

“Well, if you must know, I haven’t had much of an appetite recently.”

“And why would that be?” John looked at him expectantly.

Sherlock knew that he would have to make some sacrifices to get out of here, he would have to make promises, make a show of eating, and being normal. He tried to think of a convincing lie to answer John’s question, but was unable to think of anything that didn’t sound totally foolish, so he ended up going with something resembling the truth. “Well, I’ve been quite frustrated over the resolution of the Ablertine case.” Sherlock began, “I keep trying to think of what I could have done differently, what I might have missed, what would have changed the outcome. This reexamination is a case of its own really, and you know how I am about eating on cases.” He finished, hoping this would satisfy John. John looked at Sherlock like Sherlock was a complicated problem, he was trying to solve. “So…” John said, “It’s nothing more than that. You just feel like you are still on a case… that you have been working on for three months. I don’t think your usual case fasting is really appropriate for this situation do you?”

“Of course I see that now John, I honestly hadn’t realized how badly I had neglected myself. You know how I lose track of my transport.” Sherlock responded exasperatedly.

“That still doesn’t explain why you freaked out when I offered you pasta, ran off, got wasted and almost killed yourself.”

“You had interrupted me during a particularly important investigation of the case in my mind palace, I thought that much was obvious, but apparently not. After I left the apartment, I went to flat I have been keeping an eye on for some time. It is a place I like to go and think on occasion. There was some rather expensive and high quality whisky in the apartment, and I thought some slight inebriation might jiggle something loose in my mind. I clearly got carried away, and I must say that I don’t remember much beyond that.” Sherlock explained aggravatedly, as if John should already know all of this, in spite of the fact that he was just making it up as he went.  During his explanation John’s grim expression had softened a bit.

“I don’t know how something so small could get so out of hand so quickly, but I will trust you… Under one condition. When you do get out of here. That is if you get out of here, they will probably try and section you  . They don’t know what a strange person you are. It will be harder to convince them that this behavior was not totally insane compared to how you are normally. Anyway, my conditions. When we return to Baker street you will eat whenever and whatever I tell you too. And we will weigh you lets say… every three days. Are these terms agreeable?” John seemed almost cheerful, now that he had a plan. Sherlock was glad that he was able to so easily dismiss Johns concerns, but he was not at all thrilled with Johns Proposal.

“Come on,” Sherlock scoffed, “I am not a child John, I don’t need you to spoon feed me.” Sherlock kept the fear out of his voice, only by hiding it behind a thick layer of annoyance.”

“Well, you don’t have an exemplary track record of feeding yourself, and I’ve decided you don’t get a say. I will call Mycroft.”

“Why ask me if the terms are agreeable, if I clearly have no choice in the matter.”

“I was hoping we could reach an arrangement without me having to threaten you, but then I realized there is nothing up for discussion.”

Sherlock turned away from John and angrily stared straight ahead at the wall, he had no control over the situation. His mind buzzed, trying to work his way out of his current situation. He could feel John still looking at him, he wished John would just leave him alone. “Fine,” he snapped, “would you go and tell someone that I’m awake and not about to make a mad dash for the exit, so that someone could get these. Bloody. Cuffs. Off me,” He finished emphasizing his final words with a tug on his bonds.

“Sure,” John nodded, ignoring Sherlocks anger, “and after that your brother wants to talk to you.” Sherlock’s only response to that news was a groan.

As soon as the door shut behind John, Sherlock let his head fall heavily against his pillows, closing his eyes. This was a nightmare, John was clearly determined to follow through with his plan of Sherlock putting on weight. Why would he want to do such a thing, couldn’t John see how bloody fat he we was already? In an instant the skeletal image Sherlock had seen in the mirror flashed through Sherlocks memory. He could not reconcile the data, how could he see one thing one instant and another thing, the thing that everyone else seemed to see, the next instant. Perhaps his eyes were deceiving him. Perhaps he really was as emaciated as everyone else seemed to think. It was hard for him to imagine. Sherlock shook his head and felt the tube tug in his nose. Even if it were true the idea of gaining a single ounce made Sherlock’s skin crawl. He couldn’t bear it. He would have to find another solution.

 

 


	11. London Needs You

Mycroft entered the room as Sherlock was examining his newly freed wrists. He couldn’t see anything under the bandages though, and when he heard the door open he dropped his hands into his lap.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said as he walked to stand at the end of the bed. “Mycroft,” Sherlock replied with sarcastic solemnity.

“Please would you be serious for a moment!” Mycroft bit out in an uncharacteristic show of emotion. “Really Sherlock, I thought...hoped, after all this time, the years of sobriety, John, that I wouldn’t have to watch yourself destroy yourself again.” Sherlock attempted to object but Mycroft cut him off. “No. Let me finish, John has spoken with me about your conversation. While he may be easily convinced that this was a simple mistake, that the malnourishment was unintentional, I do not trust you for a moment. I know you will have no problem manipulating the doctors here into not sectioning you, and since I know how oppositional you would be to a standard treatment program, I will not go out of my way to correct them. John has also informed me about your arrangement for returning home, and I hope that this is enough to solve whatever it is that you are currently experiencing. However, while John may be an excellent friend and doctor, he is by no means a specialist, and if your… condition fails to improve under his supervision I will not hesitate to step in and demand that you receive the treatment you need. No matter how much you revile the idea of it. Do I make myself clear!?”

  
Mycroft stopped abruptly and looked at Sherlock who was staring intently at his hands in his lap. Sherlock was at a loss for a witty retort. He knew he was caught out, and Mycroft was using a mix between his “beloved baby brother voice”, a voice Sherlock had not heard in years, and his “I will destroy you voice” which was heard by foreign diplomats rather regularly. Sherlock swallowed and felt the tube itch in the back of his throat and again felt the urge to rip it out of his nose, but schooled his hands and kept them firmly in his lap.

  
Mycroft took another step towards the bed, “Sherlock?” Now his voice was quiet, unsure and sad? Honestly, hearing so much emotion in Mycroft’s voice in such a short time period was scaring Sherlock a bit. “Alright,” Sherlock whispered.  
“What?” Mycroft leaned in.  
“ I SAID, alright,” Sherlock repeated forcefully, finally looking up, “Now would you please leave.”

Mycroft nodded and moved to leave. He paused with his hand on the door handle and said without looking back, “London needs you well, brother. We all do.” The door closed quietly behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Everyone. I know it has been ages since I posted, but my semester is finished so I should be able to update a bit more regularly now. Thanks for sticking with me. As always any and all feedback and comments are welcome and greatly appreciated!


	12. Rest Alone

The rest of the day consisted of Sherlock talking to doctors, and repeating again and again, that “yes, it was an accident, no, it won’t happen again, yes, I usually eat, yes, I do understand that not eating has affected my health.” Some he was able to convince with his carefully constructed lies, and one he manipulated by threatening to reveal his secret affair and malpractices. Though it was not easily done, by the end of the day the doctors all agreed that Sherlock was not an immediate danger to himself and others, and thus would not be sectioned. Given his current physical condition he would remain in the hospital for three more days and on the feeding tube until he felt well enough to eat a solid meal. Sherlock hid how relieved he was when he received this news. He feared that the one doctor might ignore his threats and test his luck thinking others would take his word over that of a crazy patient. He also asked for his first meal immediately so that he might have his feeding tube removed. He had to make a good show of it. 

John, thankfully, had gone home to sleep properly and would not be returning until the following day. Which left Sherlock alone at night in the dark of his room considering how full his stomach was of hospital food which he had consumed earlier in the evening. He was trying to remain calm, focus on his breathing, he could do this, it was just one meal, soon enough he would be out of here and could get back on track. 

But telling himself this wasn’t enough, he could feel the calories churning in his stomach and thought that he could remember the feeling of the drips from the tube falling into his throat, though he knew this was impossible. He was starting to panic, he squeezed his eyes shut as his breathing sped up. Then he thought of how he looked, ballooning, wrapped in thick rolls of rancid fat, it was so disgusting, so disgusting that… His eyes popped open, he could feel that he was going to be sick. Quickly he got out of bed and rushed into his small bathroom. It hurt to move around, but he had been able to get to the bathroom unassisted to relieve himself during the day. He barely made it to the toilet basin before his stomach contents rushed up into his mouth. His head felt like it was a hundred degrees and his body freezing, he shuddered as wave after wave of vomit poured out of him. 

Finally it was over. He felt shaky and sweaty, but better than before. Sherlock went to wash his hands and face. He was glad that he hadn’t had time to turn on the lights on when he entered the bathroom, being able to see his reflection in the bathroom mirror might have sent him dry heaving.   
Shivering, Sherlock crawled back under his blankets and rolled onto his side. His body hurt all over, but now that the panic had passed, he could feel how utterly exhausted he was. “Please,” he thought, “let tomorrow be easier. I need it to be easier tomorrow” He curled into a ball, clutching his arms to his chest, and fell asleep.


	13. Sleep Easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry for the long wait between chapters, my updating may continue to be spotty, just because this is a difficult story to write. But I haven't given up on it yet! It's just coming slowly. Hopefully you like the update, feedback is always appreciated.

On the cab ride home John had felt relief. He had been so worried about Sherlock, so convinced there was something terribly wrong with him, and now his worries had been banished. Well, for the most part. Sherlock was still obviously in incredibly poor health regarding his weight, but he seemed to be genuine in that he had just forgotten to feed himself and would eat if John told him too. It was hardly the first time something like this had happened.  Sherlock’s neglect of his body was frequently dramatic, staying awake for so long that he would fall asleep standing up on the subway, or walking home in the freezing cold in nothing but his shirt and trousers, seemingly oblivious to how violently he was shivering. At this point, it was what John had come to expect. And the thing with the bottle, while quite disturbing also wasn’t so out of the ordinary. Sherlock had injured himself far worse provoking dangerous criminals. This pattern was of course not ideal, but also in John’s mind not immediately dire. Just as in all these other instances Johns strategy would to fix the current issue, and work slowly and surely on Sherlock’s day to day behavior. He knew that even though Sherlock was crazy and reckless now, that he was much better than he had been before he met John, John had faith that Sherlock would continue to become more responsible as time went on, even if he never reached a standard that would be considered normal by others. All John had to do right now was rest, get Sherlock home from the hospital, and feed him up. It would all be fine. Of course it would all be fine.

As John fell asleep there was a slight niggling at the back of his mind. “Sherlock is brilliant, can you really trust him. Maybe these patterns are more than patterns, maybe it is actually something quite sinister,” but John pushed those thoughts out of his mind and by the next morning he forgot he ever had them. 


	14. Hide it Well

Sherlock awoke very early the next morning. He went to relieve himself in the bathroom, and was met with the distinct smell of sick. “Shit!” he thought, the doctors or John, or whoever went in the bathroom would know, and it would be harder to avoid suspicions. He returned to his bed and worried at the edge of his blanket. He jumped a bit when the door to his room opened, and tried his best to not look guilty, and was immediately relieved that the first person to visit him at this early hour was a member of the janitorial staff. She of course would know nothing about Sherlock’s case, and would find nothing unusual about a bathroom smelling of vomit, working in a hospital she would be used to such things. While she cleaned in the bathroom, Sherlock nicked a bottle of strong smelling cleaning spray off the bottom of her cart and tucked in under his bed. He had been lucky that she was the first person to go into the bathroom after he had been sick, but he would have to be more careful and clean up after himself in the future.

After that crisis was averted, Sherlock was able to relax a bit more. This morning he was feeling much better, the IV hydration while not the nutrition his body so desperately needed was doing him good. It also helped that he was no longer hung over and suffering from blood loss. Sherlock smiled to himself. See, he didn’t need food after all, he was feeling better, and he certainly hadn’t been feeling better after he had eaten. Perhaps it was less than healthy, perhaps John was right and he was much thinner than he thought, but he just couldn’t stand to eat. The physical feeling of having food in his stomach was even more repulsive to him than the idea of gaining weight, which was quite upsetting on its own. He considered that he might have a problem, that he might be wrong, that he might actually not be fat in spite of how he felt. The words “eating disorder” flitted through his mind, but that was absurd surely! He was not a pathetic teenage girl attempting to be pretty. His transport was just faulty, and he could only manage it by not eating, even if it was unhealthy. Anyway he did plenty of unhealthy things, and while he knew not eating was bad for him, he thought it surely couldn’t be worse than his smoking. If John, and Mycroft, and doctors couldn’t accept that while his was of eating was less than ideal, it was what he needed,  then he would just have to keep it a secret. It wouldn’t be that difficult. 


	15. Mixed Signals

The next four days were a flurry of visits from John, miss Hudson and Lestrade. Sherlock would smile and dutifully eat his hospital meals and then give some reason why whoever was with him should leave. “I need to rest,” “I’m going to my mind palace and you are distracting me,” “would you please pick up those tongues Molly is saving for me, she says she can’t justify keeping them any longer.” Then after the door he would slip into the bathroom with his bottle of cleaning spray. At first he didn’t even have to put his fingers down his throat, his stomach was so unused to having food in it that he was already nauseous and kneeling over the bowl was enough to bring the contents of his stomach back up. After a few days this no longer worked, but a couple of fingers did the trick. He had to be very careful lest he get anything on his arms which were bandaged to the wrist. Sherlock would then clean meticulously, so there was no evidence of his activities, and return to bed. He made sure to stay hydrated, and took the vitamins they offered him. He would even save just a bit of juice from his meals to keep his blood sugar up, though even that disgusted him. However, it was only for a few days and he needed to seem at least a bit better if he was to get out of here.

The hardest part of each day was when he had to have a wash and have his bandages changed. He was still incredibly sore from the lacerations all over his arms and front, and while moving around a bit was painful it was nothing compared to having the bandages unwrapped where they would stick to the wounds and sting as they were peeled off. After which, he had to endure lying naked from the hips up while a nurse sponged him down down and applied antibacterial ointment. Not only would have to see his own body, but he would see the looks of discomfort on the nurses faces. “They are disgusted by your fat,” Sherlock would think, “they can’t stand the look of you. You looked horrid enough before you marred yourself. Now you look like a pig they tried to slice up for bacon. You are so disgusting and pathetic.” Once they had him re-wrapped he would feel some relief, though the thoughts were still with him, and he felt like a horror movie mummy.

In general, he was able to entertain the idea that John and the doctors were right that he was unusually thin, perhaps even slightly unhealthfully so. When he looked at himself however it was another story, all he could see was fat, and he couldn’t imagine how the others could be so blind. Though one morning before breakfast, he had caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror while he urinating, a skeletal profile in the corner of his eye. When he turned to face the mirror however the image was gone. It was deeply disconcerting, how what he saw the night when he ran from the flat, and then again in the bathroom mirror, was so different from what he saw the rest of the time. He knew something was off that he wasn’t seeing something right. He wished he could confide in John and ask him was happening, but he feared that if he did it would mean he wouldn’t be able to leave the hospital.

On the morning of the fourth day he was to be weighed before they decided whether they would discharge him. Sherlock managed to down over a liter of water, before the doctors came to get him to be weighed. When he weighed in at a kilo and half more than his entrance, they agreed that he could be discharged. Relieving himself after his weigh in was a blissful experience, being able to instantly lose that sense of fullness and heaviness without the nastiness and dizziness of vomiting was the most enjoyment Sherlock had felt in a long time. 


	16. Home

John spent the whole ride home talking about the lovely pre-prepared meals missus Hudson had made for them. Sherlock listened absentmindedly while watching the city speed by his window, careful not to focus on his faint reflection in the glass. He was glad to be coming home from the hospital, and confident in his ability to hide his behaviors from John, but he was already starting to feel a pool of guilt forming in his stomach. He wished he didn’t have to keep this from John, but he knew it was unlikely that John would understand so he didn’t really have a choice.

“Sherlock,” John’s voice broke into Sherlock’s thoughts. He turned away from the window.

“Yes?” He responded.

“You seemed a bit far off there, everything alright?”

“Of course. Well, as alright as things can be whilst having multiple painful lacerations.”

“Right, well we will be home soon, and you could have some paracetamol with the lasagne missus Hudson made for us.”

“Excellent plan,” Sherlock said with a smile before turning back to the window and letting his face drop. He felt dread start to pool down beside the guilt. The mere knowledge

that he would purge whatever he ate did not make the process of eating painless. He could still feel each bite sliding down in throat, could imagine each calorie absorbed in the time between chewing and when he would actually get the chance to vomit. And the whole thing was made worse by that fact that he had to pretend it was easy, pretend that it was enjoyable. Make John believe that each bite he ate was going to remain in his body. John was his only friend in the world, and before this thing had reared its ugly head he thought he could trust John with anything. And John trusted him, but he couldn’t trust John with this. It honestly made him want to cry. How undignified.

At Baker street Sherlock ate two thirds of his portion, enough for him to reasonably say he was full. He discreetly pocketed the paracetamol John handed him knowing that if he took them now they would only end up being washed down the toilet. Then he excused himself saying there were some slides he needed to find in his bedroom. He closed the door to his room carefully behind him, and opened the door to his en suite bathroom. He hadn’t used this bathroom for conventional activities since John moved in and he had to relocated any experiments that were too sensitive or dangerous to possibly be disturbed in public spaces. Sherlock carefully cleared his equipment off the toilet and the sink. He listened to be sure John was still in front of the television, before voiding the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl, flushing, washing his hands, brushing his teeth. Then he walked shakily back into his room and flopped on the bed, completely exhausted.

Remembering the paracetamol in his pocket, he dragged himself up and walked back into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.

“Sherlock.” He heard from the living room.

“Yes, John?”  He replied, trying not let his voice betray how tired he was.

“I have to change your bandages.” John had moved to the kitchen doorway, so Sherlock could only hope the John hadn’t noticed him flinch. He hadn’t thought about that part of being home. He couldn’t let John see him, not like that.

“That won’t be necessary.” He turned to the sink and filled his glass of water, not wanting to make eye contact.

“Of course it’s necessary, you have to change the bandages so that you don't get an infection.”

“No, I mean it isn’t necessary for you to do it, I can take care of it myself.”

“But surely it would be easier for me to do it, I really don’t mind Sherlock. Must I remind you once again that I am a doctor...”

Sherlock cut him off, “John I’m very tired can we deal with this tomorrow,” before walking down the hall.

“First thing!” John called after him.

It wasn’t unusual for Sherlock to be withdrawn, and curt. John knew this. He had hopped that coming home from the hospital might have improved Sherlock’s mood, but clearly luck had not been in his favor. John would call Lestrade and see if there were any cases Sherlock could work on from the flat until he was more recovered. 


	17. Keep Up the Act

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey all,   
> I know it's been ages since I have posted, but this is a hard story to write and I get very bogged down with school. Anyway, here is a new chapter, I will try and write more over break, but I don't know if I will be able to finish this story, anyway, he is the new chapter.

The next day when John shuffled sleepily into the kitchen, and he found that Sherlock was already up and dressed, leaning over his microscope. 

“Morning. Tea?” John said with a yawn. 

“Yes, thank you,” Sherlock replied. 

John went about making tea, “Milk? Sugar?” 

“No, plain is fine.”

Finishing up, John turned and sat down at the table across from Sherlock, noticing a dirty plate off to the detective's side. 

“Did you have breakfast already?” John asked a bit surprised that Sherlock would eat without him pressing. 

“Yes, I had some beans and toast and jam,” Sherlock replied, then paused before looking up from his microscope, “Sorry, I didn’t make you any.” 

John snorted at Sherlock's face, the detective actually did look sorry, like he had forgotten to do what he knew what polite, not that he ever cared about being polite. 

“Anyway,” John said, standing up, “time to change your bandages.” 

“I’ve already done,” Sherlock replied, still peering into his microscope. 

“I woke up and they were itchy and you were still asleep.”

“You could have gotten me up Sherlock, it must have been difficult doing it all yourself.”

“No, not very, I’m quite flexible and dexterous.”

John huffed a sigh, but decided to let it go. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That morning Sherlock had awoken gasping and damp. He had been dreaming. Dreaming about food, Chinese food to be exact, and he had been eating it, eating seas of lo mein, mountains of dumplings and general Tous chicken. At first he had been ravenously hungry and had started in on the food swallowing mouthfuls hardly chewing, but soon he was full to bursting, but couldn’t stop feverishly shoveling food into his mouth, his stomach was aching but he couldn’t stop eating. It was so sickening that, upon jerking awake, he rushed into the bathroom, and coughed a few mouthfuls of bile into the toilet. After washing his hands and brushing his teeth he shakily returned to his bed. Looking at the clock he saw it was only 4 in the morning. His bandages were sticky with sweat, so he went and retrieved John’s medical bag. He was planning on getting up early to change his bandages before John got up anyway. There was no chance he would be letting the Doctor see him naked from the waist up.  

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Things continued in a similar fashion the next two days. John would put plates of food in front of Sherlock, he would eat a reasonable amount of them, then as soon as he was sure that John wouldn’t notice, Sherlock would sneak off to void the continues of his stomach. John returned to work, leaving packed lunches. Sherlock would carefully leave crumbs and wrappers on the table before walking downstairs to throw his lunch in the dumpsters out back. On the third day, Sherlock woke up and listed to John shuffling about downstairs getting ready for work. He knew that, by their agreement, today was the day that he would be weighed. He stayed in bed until he knew that John would have to leave shortly, before he went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, the plate of eggs on the table not going unnoticed.

“Sherlock, I made you breakfast sleepyhead. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep this much.”

“Thought you would be happy I was starting healthier habits.” Sherlock grumbled. 

“I guess, it’s just weird,” John responded, shrugging on his coat, “and don’t forget I will be weighing you when I get home, I wanted to do it before I left for work, but I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Enjoy, treating the sore throats of the masses.” Sherlock said waving his hand dismissively. 

Sherlock listened as the door closed, before carefully discarded the breakfast John had made him, and settling down on the sofa with his tea and laptop. 

Lestrade had promised to bring by some case files this morning, since he wasn’t letting Sherlock out into the field until he was fully recovered, even though Sherlock was more capable than the yarders even if he was moving a bit slowly. He opened up his email to see if there were any interesting private cases. He was reading through the largely mind numbing string of emails, when he started to nod off. It seemed to be happening to him allot lately. It was completely inexplicable and annoying. I should make some coffee, Sherlock thought, before deciding that it was too much effort and letting his head fall to rest on the back of the couch.

Later, he was roused by a knock on the door, for a moment he was terrified that John was home from work before he had gotten ready to be weighed. Then he remembered that Lestrade was supposed to come by. 

“It's open!” Sherlock shouted, and the DI came in looking at the case files he was carrying. 

“I was able to scrape together some cold cases, not all that interesting other than this one, locked room murder, thought you might like it…” He trailed off as he looked up to the detective. “Christ you look terrible mate.” 

“Yes, thank you for your input!” Sherlock snapped walking over and snatching the files out of the DIs hands. Of course he knew he looked terrible, since getting home not only did he have the weight from the hospital to lose, his complexion and hair had gone to shit, as he still wasn’t allowed to shower properly until his wounds healed over. 

“John wasn’t joking when he said you needed to put weight on,” Sherlock’s eyes snapped up to the DI “You look like you’re about to kneel over.” He didn’t seem like he was lying, how could he see something so different. 

“I can assure you I am quite alright.” 

“Right, good then, mind if I make myself a cuppa?” Sherlock waved at him to go ahead, and opened the first case file, and plopping back onto the couch. The case wasn’t very interesting, but it was better than nothing. He looked up when the DI settled into John’s chair. “You don’t need to stay. I will text you as soon as I make any progress on these.”  

“Look, Sherlock, what’s going on with you. And don’t tell me you’re fine, I know you’ve been in hospital, and John was weird about telling me why were you there. Then I come by and you look like a walking corpse. Did you relapse? Cause you know I can’t let you on cases if you are using.”

“I can promise you it’s nothing like that.” Sherlock responded. 

“Then what is it like?”

“I can’t really see how it is any of your business, it won’t be affecting my work.”

“Sherlock, I don’t only care about your work you know, your well being is also important to me, but if you don’t want to tell me what is going on then fine. I’ll just be going then.” He said setting his cup down and standing up. Sherlock didn’t watch as the detective left, he felt bad, of course it wasn’t going to be just John he had to hide from, it was Lestrade, Missus Hudson, his brother, Molly. Couldn’t they just mind their own business? 

Sherlock worked on the case files most of the day, stopping to dispose of his pack lunch, and drink several coffees. Then, about twenty minutes before John was due home,  Sherlock began the unpleasant activity of drinking two liters of water. By the time John was home, Sherlock was feeling quite ill with how full his stomach and bladder were, and John took ages to put away his coat, shoes and bag. 

“John, can you weigh me now? I want to get back to the cases Lestrade brought by.”

“Yeah, just give me a second I have to use the loo.” Sherlock was anxious, what if the water wasn’t enough and John found out. What if he had gained from all the calories he must be absorbing between eating and vomiting. 

Finally, John finished in the bathroom, and had Sherlock come in and step onto the scale. He was exactly two kilograms more than his exit weight from the hospital, which was enough to satisfy John. Sherlock immediately started wondering how much of that was water, how much was actual weight, how much had he actually gained since leaving the hospital. He resolved to go out and buy his own scale tomorrow when John was at work. 

The next day Sherlock, went to visit the morgue. Even wrapped up in his coat, the basement morgue chilled him to the bone. When he closed the door behind him Molly looked up from the body she was examining. 

“Oh, hello Sherlock…” She started, but then stopped, looking at him, “You look dreadful, are you alright?”

“Why does everyone feel the need to keep telling me how terrible I look!” Sherlock snapped. All he had wanted was something to do to keep from dying of boredom at the flat, but he couldn’t even get a finger on a corpse without being berated. 

“Probably because they are worried, you look like you are about to waste away. What’s wrong  have you been ill? Are you using? Cause if you are, you have to leave, and if you try and take anything with you I  _ will _ call Lestrade.”

“What!? No! I haven’t been using. I’m perfectly alright, and I would appreciate if you would mind your own business.”

“No.” Molly replied, crossing her arms, and staring the detective down. 

“No?” Sherlock responded incredulously. “What do you mean  _ no _ ?”

“I mean,  _ no _ I won’t mind my own business and  _ no _ I don’t believe that you are perfectly alright. For christ sake Sherlock you look like a corpse from the eating disorder clinic…” Molly trailed off as Sherlock’s expression changed from one of frustration to one of horror. He couldn’t possibly, she thought, but his face, clearly she had struck a cord. 

“Sherlock, you don’t… that’s not what’s going on is it?”

As quickly as his face had fallen, it screwed itself back into an expression of extreme annoyance.

“Don’t be absurd! I am completely fine, and I didn’t come here to be repeatedly insulted.” Sherlock said, turning on his heel and walking towards the door. 

“I didn’t mean it like that. I was just trying to…” Molly was cut off by the door slamming closed behind Sherlock as he stalked away down the hall. 

At a loss, Molly pulled out her cell phone and texted John. 

Something is wrong with Sherlock, you need to talk to him. -Molly


	18. Breaking Point

As Sherlock ran up the stairs and out of the building he could feel his heart pounding against his ribs. Molly couldn’t possibly be right! An eating disorder?! Eating disorders were something that happened to fragile minds, to common people, not to people like Sherlock. But then again addiction was something that happened to common people, so perhaps he wasn’t above the ails of the masses. He shook his head, trying to clear out the thoughts he was having, but then he stopped running down the street and stood dead in his tracks. He knew it was true, maybe he had known it was true since it had started. His mind kept supplying excuses and justifications, but he couldn’t believe in them anymore. Deep down he knew there was a problem, a problem that had been there for a very long time, a problem that others had seen, but he, the great Sherlock Holmes had been blind to.

He took a few more steps so that he could look at himself in a store front window. He still looked fat, he still felt fat. A bubble of fear and frustration rose up in him. How could this have happened, what was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he see the truth? How was he so unable to control his own mind? He couldn’t stand it for another moment. He needed this to stop, and he knew just the thing to do it.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  


John got the text message from Molly right before he left the surgery for the afternoon.

_Something is wrong with Sherlock, you need to talk to him. -Molly_

He texted back.

_What is it? What's wrong? -JW_

_I don’t know for sure, but he definitely needs help.- Molly_

_I’m leaving work now and heading back to the flat, can I just talk to him then, or do I need to call Mycroft in to handle an emergency?-JW_

_Don’t call Mycroft yet, he might just make things worse, you know how much Sherlock would hate to have him involved. Just make sure you talk to Sherlock and deal with whatever is going on.-Molly_

Molly closed her phone. She wasn’t sure if she should share her suspicions with John, that Sherlock might have an eating disorder. It could still be any number of things. She sighed, it really wasn’t her business, Sherlock was right. But John was Sherlock’s best friend, and Sherlock’s doctor for that matter, it was definitely John’s business.

John was on the stairs to the flat when his phone buzzed again.

_I’m not sure about telling you this, because I may be totally off the mark and it isn’t my business. But I think Sherlock might have an eating disorder. -Molly_

John looked down at his phone, he felt his stomach drop. He had dismissed the idea before. Still, Molly could be wrong. He had seen Sherlock eating! He always left a mess from his lunch on the table! But Sherlock was a master of manipulation, he could easily have been putting on an act. He could have been… God John didn’t even want to think… purging the food. But when he had weighed Sherlock he was up two kilos from the hospital, surely that was something. But he could have had weights on him, or drank allot of water. Jesus, John had to talk to Sherlock. He turned his key in the lock and pushed the door open, “SHERLOCK!” He called out. When there was no response, he looked quickly around the flat, before he determined that the detective was not home. So, he did the sensible thing, and made himself a cup of tea and settled down into his chair to wait, no reason to worry yet.  

After an hour he sent out a text.

_Sherlock, when will you be back at the flat?-JW_

There, that was a _neutral_ message, more likely to get a response than one that Sherlock deemed overly concerned or interfering.

After two hours had passed without any response, John was really starting to worry. But Sherlock would often be out and incommunicado for hours on end. Molly had said not to involve Mycroft. It wasn’t that kind of emergency. Even _if_ Sherlock was very ill, the probability of him dropping in the street was low, wasn’t it? Besides, anyone would see and call for an ambulance... surely.  

 

It was about a half an hour later when John’s phone finally buzzed. He opened his phone hoping to be relieved, but the message could not have had a more opposite effect.

_I need your help. Please come quickly. -SH_

He typed off a message as he put on his coat and jogged down the stairs.

_I’m coming. Where are you? -JW_

He got the address just he climbed into a cab, and gave it to the driver.

“Get me there as quickly as possible, it’s a bit of an emergency, and there’s a good tip in it for you.”

Then he dialed Sherlock’s number, he listened to the tone ring out and go to voicemail, and swore under his breath. At least he would be there soon.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sherlock sat leaned against the brick wall of the alley he had ducked into after finding a shady looking fellow, who he correctly deduced, would be able to sell him heroin. He prepped the drug and drew it up into the syringe. It was enough to let him escape what was happening to him, possibly forever. He didn’t even care, maybe that _is_ what he wanted, to sleep and never wake up. It might not be like that though, it might hurt, he could seize, he couldn’t still be conscious as his heart and lungs stopped doing their jobs. He pulled his belt tight around his bony arm, which was still wrapped in bandages. He flicked at the veins on the back of his hand, his forearm would have been better, but that currently wasn't an option. He was ready, syringe in one hand poised over the other. He tried to hit the vein, but his hand was shaking too much and he missed. Pulling the needle out, he let out a sob he hadn't even realized he had been holding it. _Pull yourself together Sherlock! You can do this._ He tried to steady his hand, but it just seemed to shake more. He was scared, he was so scared. He was terrified of the pain, or what would happen if it didn’t work, he could be brain damaged, he would have to go to rehab, John would be upset, he might leave. God damn it! Sherlock let out a broken scream and threw the syringe against the other wall of the alley.

He was at a total loss as what to do, he wasn’t sure where he was and he was in no state to go anywhere. God, he was totally useless! He was trying to level his breathing, but his lungs didn’t seem to be listening to his brain. He was going to have a panic attack, he couldn’t do this now, please not now. John would know what to do. John...

Sherlock remembered a few months after they had first met. Mycroft had called John to tell him that Sherlock was having a danger night. He had been totally fine, Mycroft had just been sticking his nose in as per usual. But, he remembered what John had said to him when he had gotten back to the flat. “Sherlock, I’m very glad to hear you are fine, and excited to learn that your vocabulary can actually get quite colorful when it comes to your brother, but I need you to listen to me. If you ever, _ever_ feel like using, if you ever need to talk, ever need help, call me. Come talk to me. It’s all fine.” Sherlock had shrugged off comment, dismissing it with a snide remark before moving onto something more interesting.

Sherlock had hardly bothered listening to John then, but now, _this_ was what John had been talking about. He hated the idea of John seeing him like this, disgusting and weak and pathetic. He couldn’t tell John, he just couldn’t! He didn’t know what else to do. He thought back to when he could trust John completely, back before the Albertine murders, back before all this _stuff_ had come back into his head. That was the truth, he told himself. He _could_ trust John, and in spite of every instinct telling him to hide, to not let John see, he pulled out his phone and sent a text.

_I need your help. Please come quickly-SH_

John texted back immediately, and he responded with the address of the store he could see across the road. Moments later his phone started ringing, John was calling him. He froze, unable to pick up, it was all he could do not to run away so he would be long gone by the time he arrived. Pulling his knees into his chest, he buried his head in his arms. John was coming, he had to trust John. He repeated it in his head like a mantra, even though the background of his thoughts was a cacophony of _You can’t trust him! Are you crazy? He is going to make you fat!_ He just thought it over and over. _John is coming, you have to trust John._ Until he was shaken from his thoughts by a familiar voice.

“Sherlock!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments and feedback very appreciated.


	19. Distance

When John, got out of the cab, and saw a deli shop that was closed for the evening at the address Sherlock had given him. He kicked the front step in frustration. He ran his hand through his close cropped hair as he spun around trying to figure out what to do next. Then, he noticed a figure hunched in the shadows of the alley across the street. He ran over, and called “Sherlock!” as he could make out the detectives dark curls. Sherlock looked up at him, as John took in the scene, the belt around Sherlock’s bandaged arm, and the syringe on the pavement several feet away. John knelt down, putting his hand on the detective's shoulder.

“Sherlock are you alright? Did you take any?” He asked hurriedly, wishing the detective would look up again, so he could see his eyes.

“No.” Sherlock choked out head still buried in his arms, John now noticing how much he was shaking.

“No, what? _No_ you didn’t take any, or no you’re not alright.”

“Both.” Sherlock let out a sob. John had never seen him like this, he had seen him angry and frightened before, but nothing like this, a complete loss of composure.

“Okay. Okay. Sherlock can you tell me what’s going on?” The only response was what John assumed to be a shake of the head.

“Sherlock, look at me.” Finally, Sherlock lifted his head to look at John. He looked wretched, gaunt, his skin thin and pale, but most of that John knew was coming. His eyes were wet and red, but his pupils were neither dilated, nor extremely constricted, so it appeared Sherlock was telling the truth when he said he hadn’t used any drugs. He was breathing fast, and still shaking like a leaf.

“Sherlock I need you to calm down, so just breath deeply with me ok.” John audibly took a deep breath, and Sherlock who was now staring down at the pavement by his feet, appeared to try and do the same. It took several minutes, but finally Sherlock was breathing more normally.

“Do you think you can get up?” John asked numbly and he pulled the belt from around Sherlock’s arm, which Sherlock had let him take with no resistance. He honestly couldn’t tell if the detective even realized. Sherlock nodded numbly still staring at the pavement.

“Alright, let’s get you out of here.” John, kicked the syringe farther back into the alley, and helped Sherlock to his feet. He was a bit unsteady, but extremely light, so John easily supported his weight with an arm around his waist. They walked about a block before John was able to hail a cab. He helped the younger man into the cab, where he sat silently staring at the back of the seat in front of him.

“He alright mate?” Asked the cabbie as John got into his own seat.

“He’s fine, 221 Baker street please.” John replied not looking away from Sherlock.

He stared off distantly, his back hunched, his eyes looked empty. A few minutes into the ride, he noticed Sherlock's breathing getting erratic again.

“Sherlock,” he said, tapping the detectives knee, “breath slowly,” once again taking deep audible breaths for him to copy. Sherlock, started breathing more slowly, but still didn’t look at or acknowledge John in any way. Part of John wanted to panic, he had no idea what was going on with Sherlock and his behavior was freaking him out, but the larger part of him had gone into doctor mode. The part of him that could remain calm even as bullets were whizzing past his head as he tried to stop a soldier from bleeding to death on the feeling. That part of him was ready for whatever this was.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When John kneeled down beside him, Sherlock couldn’t keep looking at him, it was just too much. He felt John’s hand on his shoulder, and heard him ask a question, he answered mostly automatically, only halfway aware of what was going on. It was as if John had showed up and his brain had just powered down. Maybe it was because he trusted John to take care of him, more likely he was just too overwhelmed to process it all. He heard John say some more things, and he looked up at him for a moment. John said something else, and he felt his breathing slow down, he hadn’t felt like he was breathing that fast. John asked him another question and then he was being helped down the street and into the back of the cab. As they were driving is blank mind started to refill with thoughts. _John is going to be mad that you lied to him. John shouldn’t have to take care of you. Mycroft is going to find out._ John tapped him, and once again he was breathing slowly, and his mind went blank again.

Next thing he knew he was sitting on the couch in the flat, and John was placing a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of him. He knew they were going to have to talk now, he waited for anxiety to bubble up in his chest, but he was too exhausted. All he felt was a grim resignation, and thick hurt in his chest.

“Sherlock?” John said quietly, testing to see if Sherlock was really listening. Sherlock thought about pretending that he wasn’t, acting like he was in his mind palace so that he wouldn’t have to talk to John, but he couldn’t pretend any longer. So he replied.

“yes.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John had helped a distant Sherlock up the stairs before sitting him down on the couch and going to make tea. When he placed the cup down in from the detective, he looked up momentarily, so it seemed like he was a bit more present.

“Sherlock?” He asked quietly. The detective was silent for a moment, and John was resigning himself to the idea that he might not get anything more out of Sherlock tonight when he quietly responded.

“yes.”

“I need to ask you some questions, ok?” Sherlock nodded.

“Ok, first have you been using any drugs? I know you said you didn’t tonight, but any at all in the past few months.” Sherlock shook his head.

“Right, and have you been hurting yourself, other than the night with the bottle that I know about.” Another shake of the head.

“Have you been eating?” Sherlock paused, looking down at the tea in front of him.

“Sherlock?”

“You’ve seen me eat,” Sherlock barely whispered. John leaned back in his chair, taking that in, not a straight out confirmation but telling nonetheless.

“Have you been keeping it down?” John heard Sherlock make a strangled noise. The detective managed to get out a, “no I’m sorry,” before his voice cracked and he let out a full sob. Without thinking, John moved to sit beside Sherlock and wrap his arm around his friend’s shoulder. He knew Sherlock usually wasn’t big on touching, but it seemed like the right thing to somehow.

“And you have been throwing it up on purpose?” John had to ask, he needed to have the final confirmation, not just to know for sure, but so Sherlock couldn’t deny it later. Sherlock nodded.

“Why?” Sherlock shook under his arm.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what, Sherlock?”

“I can’t eat it… and let it stay there.”

“Why can’t you.” John wasn’t sure if he should keep pushing, but it wasn’t often Sherlock opened up, so he was going to try and keep the detective talking as long as possible. Sherlock shuddered.

“Because I feel fat and ugly and horrible.”

“Sherlock, you know you are not fat and ugly and horrible.” The detective just shook his head.

“Well, I know you are not fat and ugly and horrible. I may be an idiot, but I am right about this much, you are an attractive and good person, and right now you are very underweight and sick. And right now you need help, can we agree on that much?” Sherlock sniffed and nodded.

“Ok, we are gonna get through this. I promise. It’s going to be alright.” John gave in and wrapped his other arm around Sherlock, pulling his pointy frame in for a hug.

“Please, don’t tell Mycroft.” Sherlock mumbled into John’s shoulder. John froze for a minute, remembering that this was a bigger problem than a hug could fix right now, and that they were going to figure out how to actually deal with this, but they couldn’t do that tonight. They both needed to rest.

“I won’t call him yet, you need to rest and we can talk more in the morning, but you need to completely honest with me if we are going to deal with this, if you can’t be honest with me then I can’t help you and I will need to call Mycroft, is that fair.” Sherlock nodded.

“Ok, let’s get you to bed, so you can get some rest.” John walked Sherlock to his bedroom. Once the detective was safely in bed, he turned to leave.

“Wait,” Sherlock said, his voice rough from crying, “Can you do the breathing thing again.” John was surprised Sherlock had processed what he had done before, and that he would be able to ask for something like that.

“Of course,” John said, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking a deep breath. He sat there breathing deeply until Sherlock breathing slowed and then slipped into the slightly less even natural breathing of sleep. John watched his best friend sleep. He was so small and fragile looking, like a sick baby bird. He looked so tired with dark circles under his eyes. God, he had only been home from hospital for four days, and he was right back to looking like the brittle corpse John had watched sleep in intensive care. Any color and vitality he had gained from being pumped full of electrolytes and nutrients was already long gone.

John scrubbed his hands over his face, he was also exhausted. He was so worried he could hardly think about sleeping, but Sherlock was safe, for now, and John needed to rest for what was sure to be a long day tomorrow. He went up to his room, got ready for bed, and slipped under the covers. He tried to clear his mind of thoughts about Sherlock, so that he could rest, but it seemed fruitless. Then he remembered sitting on Sherlock’s bed and breathing for him. He imagined he was there breathing slowly and deeply with Sherlock, who was safe, who was going to get through this, who was going to be alright, until he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to get into the groove of writing again now that I am on break, but I am a bit stumped on how to end the story, as these kinds of issues are usually things people struggle with for many years if not a whole lifetime.


	20. The Morning After

John woke up as the first light started in through his windows. He listened for any noise in the flat, and hearing none, got up and went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. While the kettle boiled, he walked to Sherlock’s room, and pushed the door open gently. Looking in he saw a tangled lump of blankets with only a tuft of dark hair sticking out the top. Sighing, he quietly closed the door, making himself tea, some eggs, and toast for breakfast. He thought it was best to eat now before Sherlock woke up. He would be trying to get the detective to eat something today, but he wanted to talk with him first. Last time he had pushed without knowing what was going on, his friend had landed himself in hospital. He was hoping they could have a calm and rational conversation about what they were going to do about this, but given how upset Sherlock had been the night before he wasn’t sure how likely that was to happen. He just wanted Sherlock to get well and back to his old self. 

Seeing this all in retrospect, he felt stupid, trusting that Sherlock was telling him the truth about food. John wasn’t sure how much of his mistake was due to his perceptions of the man being above caring, and how much was due to his perception that eating disorders were something that usually happened to teenaged girls. Both reasons were damning, but John found himself looking back at his clinic patients. How many of the underweight men and teen boys he had seen were simply underweight and still healthy? Could any of them have been suffering from an eating disorder, he overlooked due to the stereotype? John shook his head, he couldn’t change the past, he could only be more diligent with the next patient he saw, or more importantly at the moment, do the best he could to help Sherlock. 

Finishing his meal, he cleaned and put away his dishes, before taking out his laptop to review the questionnaire he was trained to give patients displaying mental distress, as well as some literature more focused on eating disorders. He quickly realized that in his short interview last night he had neglected to ask a very important question. Whether Sherlock was having suicidal thoughts or had plans to kill himself. John realized that last night, Sherlock could have been calling him on the brink of not just a relapse, but a suicide attempt. 

He scrubbed his hands over his face. The guilt was overwhelming, all these months, when Sherlock had been acting listless and isolating himself. For anybody else, John would have immediately started to worry about depression and start looking for signs of other mental illness, but Sherlock had always been on the moody side, and a few days of that kind of behavior was nothing to worry about. He should have smartened up when weeks turned to months. Christ, he should have paid better attention. But he couldn’t dwell on that now. He continued reading, hoping to get as much information on the subject fresh in his mind before the detective woke up and they would have to talk. 

It was half past noon when John finally heard the detective’s door open and Sherlock walk to the bathroom. When he heard Sherlock walking back to his room, he stuck his head into the hall.

“Sherlock,” John said, “you have been sleeping for a long time, I think it would be best if we could talk before you slept any more.” 

Sherlock looked a bit like he had been caught red handed, but responded. “Of course I just would like to...” he gestured to his rumpled button down and slacks that he had worn to bed, “... get dressed?” he sounded so unsure of himself, clearly he wasn’t looking forward to this conversation but he didn’t seem too upset yet.

  
  


Sherlock closed the door behind him. He had lain in bed putting off getting up and speaking to John as long as his bladder could possibly allow. After using the bathroom, he had hoped he could maybe crawl back into his bed, regretting telling John about anything, honestly not sure if what was about to come was going to be worth the pain and effort. But he was glad to be alive this morning, well glad was too positive a word. Of the two options of being dead or alive, he would if pressed, choose to be alive, and he supposed John was part of that. So he would talk to John, god it was going to be horrible, but he would do it. He would not, however, do it looking a total mess. 

He took out his favorite suit and pressed shirt, even donning socks and shoes, hoping that his clothes might make him feel a bit more confident. They didn’t, and he wasn’t going to risk looking in the mirror to try and fix his hair. He left his bedroom, back straight head high and strode into the kitchen where John was standing in front of the kettle, mug in hand.

“Tea?” the doctor asked, as if this was a totally normal thing to say in, what was properly the afternoon, to one’s mental housemate. 

  
  


John looked up as Sherlock entered the kitchen. The detective stood stiffly with his back straight and chin high, clearly trying to look dignified in his favorite suit and shirt. The effect was lacking, however, as the cloths that used to fit the detective quite elegantly, now hung about his frame as though they were something he had hurriedly picked out in a second hand shop. His hair l hung limply around his pale face, his skin looked yellow and waxy and, from the combination of starvation and his inability to shower, he had started to get spots across his forehead. 

“Tea?” John offered, as he finished making himself a cup. 

“Please.” Sherlock said tersely, sitting down at the table. John placed the cups down on the table before settling in across from Sherlock. 

“How are you feeling?” John asked. Sherlock’s face was blank, and he carefully maintained eye contact in the way that he did to avoid looking weak when verbally sparring with his brother. John hoped that he wasn’t about to be subjected to the aggressive deductive stripping that the brothers often did to each other in order to avoid having difficult conversations. Then the detective’s face dropped, and he gazed down into his tea, as if it were just too tiring for him to maintain his composure. 

“Honestly, I feel wretched.” When the detective didn’t elaborate, John continued. 

“Could you describe more specifically how you have been feeling physically? Not just today, but recently.” 

“I’m tired, always, if I sit in one place for more than a moment i’m likely to drift off to sleep against my will. My muscles all feel sore as if I have been strenuously exercising when I haven’t done more than walk around a bit. My head hurts, and I’m freezing cold.”

“Are you hungry?” John knew this was a bit of a risky question, not sure if the detective could or would answer it honestly. Sherlock looked at John a bit wearily, and thought about the question carefully. 

“I can’t really tell.” He responded finally, looking worried at his own lack of knowledge. 

John just nodded and sipped his tea, not really sure where to take the conversation next. Sherlock looked absolutely miserable, but seemed to be making an effort to answer John truthfully. John decided what to ask.

“Why did you text me last night?”

“I needed your help,” Sherlock responded, “isn’t that much obvious?”

“Yes, but why then? Why not tell me what was going on in the hospital?”

Again Sherlock paused to consider his answer. 

“Molly said something to me that was quite upsetting. I was about to do something rash, but finding I couldn’t, I realized I was out of my depth. I thought you would know how to handle the situation, and you did.”

“What did Molly say?” John was curious what had set the detective off. 

Sherlock squirmed a bit in his seat clearly not wanting to repeat whatever it was. 

“She said that I look like a corpse… sent down from the eating disorder clinic.”

John was a bit shocked that Molly would have said something so harsh, but he supposed she had no idea that it would hit so close to home.

“And what what was the rash thing that you were going to do?” John needed to know whether he had swooped in on an aborted relapse or suicide attempt. 

Sherlock looked down into his lap, and mumbled, “It was stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.” So Sherlock wouldn’t come out and say it, John would have to be more specific. 

“Sherlock, was that enough heroin to overdose?” the detective nodded.

“And you were going to overdose on purpose?” Again Sherlock nodded. 

He muttered, “I’m glad I couldn’t… that I texted you.” John leaned back, he had hoped it hadn’t been that, but somehow he knew that it was from  the way Sherlock had been so desperate when he had found him. 

“I’m glad you texted me too,” John paused, “and when you ran off and cut yourself with the bottle, were you trying to kill yourself?”

“No, not really, I just… I’m not really sure what came over me, I didn’t mean to hurt myself that badly. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I started to get dizzy, and that’s when I called 999. I was just being reckless, yesterday was different.”

“Do you think you might try again? To hurt yourself?”

“Not now, but I’ve been so unpredictable, even to myself! It’s quite unsettling.” John agreed, it  _ was _ quite unsettling, to have a man he thought to be so together, falling apart in front of him. He still needed to ask more questions, to get on the same page, before they could figure out how to proceed. 

“Sherlock, you know you have an eating disorder, right?” Sherlock looked a bit affronted like perhaps he was going to deny it, but again he surrendered. 

“Yes. I suppose I do.”

“When did you realize?”

“After Molly said… well, perhaps before, I don’t know. It’s so hard to know what I really know and what I feel and what I tell myself, it’s all…” He scrunched up his face and shook his head, “muddled up, and frustrating. I must have known before, I must have, but I justified it. I had reasons that made it acceptable, not a problem, but yesterday those reasons stopped making sense. I mean either way it doesn’t make sense! I can’t trust my own brain! How can I not know what my own brain is doing. I just want it to stop, but it won’t.” The detective looked to John pleadingly, the way he often did when he failed to understand the emotions of others, when something was “a bit not good.” 

“When someone has an eating disorder, or any mental illness really, they can’t trust their own thoughts, at least about some things. That’s how these things work.”

“Well, I want it to be different!” Sherlock said angrily. “How do we fix it?” John completely understood Sherlock anger, but couldn’t help but find the detectives indignation a bit amusing, trust the younger man to demand his brain be fixed, as though it were like setting a broken bone. 

“I’m not an expert on these things, but generally a variety of therapies are used to retrain your brain to think differently, the hard part with eating disorders is that you have to maintain the patient’s physical health while you try to make any progress mentally. You have to keep them from starving to death before they can recover mentally. For you, Sherlock, I honestly think you will have to go to hospital. I’m not an expert and the way things are going you could drop at any moment, while we tried to figure things out at home.”

“I can’t go to hospital,” Sherlock protested, looking terrified, “Besides, it’s not anywhere near that bad yet!”

“Sherlock, in the past week you have almost killed yourself twice! You are at a dangerously low weight and not doing anything to remedy it. It is only a matter of time before you start to develop more serious complications that lethargy and headaches!”

“Like what?”

“Loss of bone density, hairline fractures, low blood pressure, heart or other organ failure, to name a few.”

Sherlock sat there looking stunned. “It can’t possibly be that bad.” He muttered.

“It can and it is Sherlock, this is serious.”

“You can’t just ship me off to some hospital and abandon me!” Sherlock shouted and stood up. “I trusted you to help me!” John was shocked at how quickly the younger man’s mood had changed from cooperative to aggressive.

“I’m trying to help you, I just don’t think that what I can do here, will be good enough in time!”

Sherlock looked explosive, frightened, anger shaking through his brutally malnourished body. 

“So what I go and get locked up and stuffed with food? Fattened in captivity before they finally deem me fit for release?” Oh John realized what this was about.

“Sherlock the only way you can get better is to gain weight, surely you must know that. What did you think I could do about it other than that?” 

Sherlock turned away from John and dashed into the living room, John chased after him, not sure what the detective would do. Once in the living room Sherlock turned to see himself in the mirror by the mantle. He let out a wordless scream and crumpled to the ground, buried his head in his hands, and started to cry. John looked at the younger man, feeling the similarities to the night before, finding him in that alley, he wondered how many meltdowns like this were in the near future. Pushing that thought aside, he crouched down beside the detective, who already seemed to be catching his breath after his outburst. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” John assured softly. Sherlock sniffed shaking his head.

“It’s not okay, there is nothing about this that is okay! I just don’t know if I can do it, if I can force myself.” John just sat there a moment rubbing his back, before responding.

“Well, when you can’t do it yourself that is when you have to let other people take care of you, even when that feels like they are forcing you to do things that you don’t want to do.” Sherlock nodded rocking forward and back a bit. 

“You’re right, but I still don’t want to go to a hospital.”

“Well, maybe we can find a different option, but as long as you stay here, even if just for a few days, you need to eat something.” Sherlock gulped. 

“Okay.” He whispered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody, I realized I made a continuity mistake when I had Sherlock trying to inject into his arm a few chapters back because his arm would still be all bandaged, do i fixed it so that he is trying to inject in the back of his hand.


	21. The First Meal

Sherlock had gone to lie down, and John set about preparing the detective’s meal. John had asked the detective what he would be willing to eat for his first meal, deciding that even starting small would be starting  _ something _ . Nothing with fat. Nothing with sugar. No meat. No dairy… The list went on and on, eventually John had to cut the detective off. After much discussion they finally they agreed, low fat, not too sweet, and easy to digest. 

John heated up a can of chicken noodle soup, and pulled some frozen fruit out of the freezer and blended it with some vanilla yogurt and a packet of flu rehydration formula. He set the soup, and the smoothie on the table, as well as a glass of water and some vitamins. He looked down at the table and sighed.  _ He is so thin, this probably isn’t enough calories to stop him from losing more weight, let alone get him back to a healthy weight. _ But John squared his shoulders and walked towards the detective's room. _ It’s just the first meal, we can work our way up. _

Sherlock was curled up in a ball with his shades drawn and his hands up over his face. 

“Sherlock,” John spoke quietly, “It’s time.” He watched as the detective uncurled his boney frame and walked from his room to the kitchen like a man walking to the noose. He sat down at the table, but didn’t move to pick up the spoon or reach for the glass. 

John stood awkwardly, “Would it be better if I stayed or should I…”

“Stay.” Sherlock snapped, “but don’t watch me eat.”

“Alright, is it alright if I do the dishes?” Sherlock nodded, and reached for the spoon. John washed the dishes more slowly and carefully than he had ever in his life. He tried to listen for the clink of the spoon in the bowl, or for when the detective picked up or placed down the glass of his smoothie. After about forty five minutes, there was no more pretending that he needed to rinse the plate another time. He turned around, Sherlock’s eyes snapped up at him, he looked like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. The soup was only half gone, but he was almost finished with the smoothie, his water was also half empty and the vitamins were gone. John gave him a nervous smile. 

“I’ll just go get a newspaper,” He said, ducking into the living room, before sitting across from Sherlock and lifting the paper to be a barrier between them. The longer he listened the slower the detective seemed to eat. John could hear the detective breathing, rough and slow, like he was keeping himself from panicking by pacing his breath. After another hour, John couldn’t take it anymore, it was the slowest he had ever known anyone to eat ever, surely Sherlock was almost finished. He took pity on his friend, and lowered the newspaper. 

“Finished?” He said. Sherlock was sat staring into his bowl, both hands flat on the table, spoon lying beside one of them. The younger man nodded, and John scooped up his bowl and glass depositing both in the sink, but not before noticing that neither was quite empty. Sherlock didn’t move. John wasn’t sure what to do other than not let him out of his sight.

“Come on, let’s go to the living room and watch some television.” John said. He watched as the detective stood, gaze still cast downwards, and followed him into the living room where they both sat on the couch and John picked up the remote. 

“What shall we watch then?” John asked, starting to be a bit freaked out by Sherlock’s empty, dead expression. 

“Whatever you like.” Sherlock responded in a quiet, defeated voice that did nothing is assuage John’s worries. John picked a channel at random and tried to watch what appeared to be a program on the history of textiles, but kept looking back at Sherlock, who didn’t appear to be taking in the show at all. After about five minutes, the detective stood and started to walk towards the hall. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” John said, standing to block the detectives path. 

“I want to go lie down in my room.” The detective responded, avoiding eye contact. 

“Why don’t you lie down on the sofa instead.” John responded. They had agreed that Sherlock would stay with John for at least forty minutes before he could be alone. John had insisted. 

“I need to use the bathroom.” Sherlock countered, his voice tight. 

“Then I will come with you.” 

“I need privacy.” Sherlock said desperately. Trying to duck around John, but the doctor grabbed him by the wrists. 

“I can’t let you do that Sherlock, we agreed.” The detective's face crumpled.

“Please John, I need… I can’t. Just let me go.” John felt guilt blooming in his chest, but he had promised himself, he couldn’t let his pity enable the detective. 

“I can’t.” John said, shaking his head. Sherlock tried to wrench his arms away, but was feebly weak compared to the doctor.

“Please,” he pleaded, tears starting to roll down his face, “Please John.” 

“I can’t, you know I can’t.” 

“Please John, I can’t do this,” Sherlock continued to struggle his voice going shrill, “Please John you’re hurting me, please just let me go.” The pleading continued, John just stood there trying not to look into the detective’s eyes. Sherlock let out a scream and collapsed against John, sobbing into the doctor’s shoulder. John felt hot tears on his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry Sherlock, I’m so so sorry.” He said, letting go of the detectives wrists to wrap his arms around his friend, “I’m so sorry.” He just held Sherlock as he shook and cried. 

John heard the flat’s door open a crack and missus Hudson's voice, “Just wanted to make sure you two were alright, I heard a shout…” She trailed off seeing them the way that they were. 

“It’s alright missus Hudson.” John replied, rubbing Sherlock’s back, “We’ll be alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a very difficult chapter to write, it really hurts when someone you care about is hurting, especially when you can't let them do the one thing that would make them feel better, I hope that comes through in the writing.


	22. The Worst That will Happen

Sherlock managed to eat the food John had prepared for him. It wasn’t any different from the times he had eaten meals in front of John only to dispose of them later. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was bearable, as long as he didn’t think about the fact that this meal was going to stay down. 

As he started to feel full it got harder to push the thoughts out of his mind, and it took more and more effort to swallow each spoonful. He could hear John listening to him through his newspaper. Well, it was less that he could hear John listening, than that he couldn’t hear the little movements the man usually made while reading the paper, shifting the paper slightly so that the text he was currently reading was closer to his face. It was intolerable, and he had to remind himself that John was only trying to be supportive.  _ You have to trust John.  _ Finally, when he wasn’t sure if he could possibly force another bite down, John lowered his newspaper, saving from his misery.

After the dishes were deposited in the sink, the two of them settled down on the sofa, John turned on the television. The program was about the history of textiles, which Sherlock might actually have been interested in. Perhaps the information could be useful in making deductions about a suspect based on the fibers they left behind at the scene. But he couldn’t focus on the program, his brain kept trying to calculate the calories he had just consumed, which was an impossible task, as he had no idea what was in either the soup or the smoothie. The voice inside his mind was screaming at him for eating, telling him that he had to get rid of the food.

Eventually, he couldn’t take it any more he had to get rid of the food. He stood and tried to leave the living room. Only to be stopped by John, who wouldn’t let him leave. When he tried to move around him, he found his arms caught in Johns, firm grip. Clearly John didn’t understand, Sherlock couldn’t keep the food down, it was killing him. He felt like he might disintegrate, or burst into flames, he couldn’t do this. He had changed his mind, there was no way that this could be better than what he had been doing before. There was no way something that felt this terrible could be good for him, he just had to get John to let go of him. Couldn’t John see he was hurting him, why couldn’t he just let go. Something inside of Sherlock’s chest snapped and he leaned into the man standing in front of him and cried. Really cried. John had seen his tears several times over the last day and a half, but even then Sherlock had been holding back, trying to keep his breathing even, pushing his panic down. But there was no quelling this panic, not when John apologized and held him, not when missus Hudson came and went. He cried for what felt like an eternity, until finally his breathing became slower, until he just stood shivering and sniffling into John’s shoulder. 

“Let’s go back to the sofa, hey?” John said softly, guiding him to sit back down. He started unwrapping himself from the detective, but Sherlock grabbed onto his sleeves.

“Where are you going.” Sherlock rasped. 

“Just to get a blanket, I’ll be right back.” Sherlock released his grip and leaned back, letting his eyes close, and his head loll to rest on back of the sofa. He heard John walk back into the sitting room. John tapped him and he leaned forward, allowing a blanket to be draped around his shoulders. John pushed something against his hand and the detective opened his eyes to see that John had also brought a box of tissue. He pulled one tissue out and blew his nose. John set the box down on the table, and pushed a glass of water into the detective's hand. Sherlock drank about half the glass before putting it down. He pulled the blanket tightly around himself and tucked his knees up to his chest so that he could rest his head on them. John sat down beside him, taking a tissue and blowing his own nose.

“Sorry.” Sherlock mumbled. 

“It’s alright. I’m just glad you aren't mad at me…  do you want to talk about it.”

“Do you think that will help?”

“It might.”

“Alright.” Sherlock replied. He was so tired, he let his eyes close. 

A moment later, John cleared his throat. “Do you want to just talk, or should I ask questions.”

“You should ask questions, otherwise I won’t know what to talk about.”

“Okay… how did you feel when you could leave to go… purge.” John, wasn’t sure what they should talk about either.

“How do you think I felt? Aren’t you supposed to be the one who is good with emotions?”

“Well, obviously you felt horribly. Could you maybe articulate what you were thinking?”

Sherlock sat quietly for a moment before whispering “I thought I might die. I know that isn’t possible, but I couldn’t think clearly and that’s what it felt like. Like I might explode.”

“But you didn’t”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You just cried. That’s the worst that will happen.”

“Yeah, well, that felt pretty horrible.”

“True… but do you feel better now?” John asked. Sherlock was quiet for a minute.

“I don’t know… I just feel numb… and tired.”

“We should go to bed,” John said, standing up, “come on.”

Sherlock stood, it took so much effort, he felt like he had just run a marathon. He followed John down the hall to his room where he sat on his bed. John stood in his doorway. 

“You gonna be ok for the night?” The doctor inquired.

“I think so, I just need to change into my pajamas.” Sherlock responded signaling that John should leave. 

“I’m proud of you. It’s gonna get easier.” John said before closing the detective's door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback and comments greatly appreciated.


	23. Make it Work

John shut the door quietly behind him, and sighed. He was proud of Sherlock, but the younger man probably burned more calories crying that he had eaten. John hoped not every meal was going to be this big an ordeal, he wasn’t sure how many days like this he could handle before he dropped from stress and exhaustion.

Sherlock sat on his bed, and removed his shoes and socks. He walked to his dresser and changed into a T-shirt and some pajama pants, before sitting back on the bed. He thought briefly of using his own bathroom to purge, but by now he had probably already digested most of what he had eaten, and he would feel guilty about it afterwards. Besides, he was exhausted. As soon as he was under the covers he felt himself slipping into sleep, too tired to even worry about tomorrow.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning John woke up at seven, ate a quick breakfast, and got straight to work. He hoped that the detective would again sleep late so that he would be able to get some shopping done. He went to the grocers and stocked up on all sorts of foods, keeping in mind what would be easiest for the detective handle and digest, while also trying to keep calories and high nutritional value. Next stop was the health food store, where he stocked up on protein powder, supplements, two boxes of ensure weight gain drinks. 

He returned to the flat at around ten and checked to make sure the detective was still in bed. When he opened the door, the detective stirred. 

“John?” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

“Yep. Just checking to see if you were still asleep, you gonna get up soon?”

Sherlock made a noncommittal grumbling noise before rolling over. John took that to mean a yes and got to work in the kitchen. He made another smoothie, and a bowl of oatmeal with a scoop of whey protein powder, sugar and sliced green apples, careful to stir it until all of the sugar was dissolved and no longer visible. Next he made two cups of tea one for himself and one with sugar (Sherlock used to take his tea with sugar before all this) for the detective. John was just setting it all down on the table with some vitamins, when the detective walked in, and froze in his tracks. 

 

Sherlock woke up when John opened his door. He rubbed his eyes, and rolled over. He supposed he might as well get up now that he was awake. Besides, he couldn’t sleep into the afternoon everyday. Sitting up, he noticed that today was the first day in some time that he didn’t have a headache. He knew that it was probably because his blood sugar was a healthier level from eating the day before. He tried not to think about it. He didn’t want to think about what he ate last night at all. He especially didn’t want to think about what he was going to have to eat today. 

Walking to the kitchen, and seeing a breakfast laid out for him, gave him a bit of a shock. Of course he knew that he would have to eat today, but he hadn’t expected to be confronted with it first thing, besides the concept of eating wasn’t nearly as bad as being faced with the actual food itself. 

“This for me then?” He asked. Of course it was for him, John had clearly been awake for hours and would have already eaten. 

“Yeah… is it alright?” John asked nervously, clearly still worried the detective might bolt or have a panic attack or another crying breakdown. Sherlock just nodded, sitting down at the table. John sat down across from him and lifted his newspaper up in front of his face. 

“I know you’re listening to me,” Sherlock grumbled picking up his spoon. 

“Sorry. Would it be better if I did something else or left?” John said apologetically. 

“You could actually read it.” Sherlock snapped, “Why don’t you watch something on your laptop, or do something that you might actually enjoy.”

John scuttled into the living room to fetch his laptop and headphones, and Sherlock turned his attention back to his food. 

  
  


John watched the news, but honestly couldn’t focus on it much. But despite his distraction he was careful not to look up at the detective. Finally, a boney hand pushed the laptop closed from across the table. 

“I’m finished.” Sherlock said, standing up from the table, “and I need a smoke, so I can either smoke in the flat or you can accompany me outside.” The detective walked into the living room and began rooting through a messy pile on the bookshelf to locate his cigarettes. 

“Sherlock, it would really be better if you didn’t, nicotine is a stimulant that could induce heart failure in an already deteriorated heart.”

“I need a bloody cigarette!” The younger man growled. “Come if you’re coming,” he finished as he toed on his shoes and shrugged his coat on over his pajamas, and stomping down the stair. John sighed, but followed. Sherlock sat on the front stoop, pulling a cigarette from the pack with his lips and digging a lighter out of his pocket. John sat beside him and watched as the detective tried unsuccessfully to get his lighter to light. His hands were shaking too much and he was breathing was tight.

“FUCK!” The detective said too loudly, failing once again to get his lighter to work, and attracting the looks of Londoners going about their day. 

“Here,” John said, snatching the lighter from Sherlock’s hands, “let me bloody do it.” 

Sherlock looked a bit embarrassed as John lit the lighter and he had to lean in to get the end of his cigarette into the flame. Drawing a long drag, he pulled away from the doctor and plucked the cigarette from his lips. He blew the smoke out.

“Sorry,” he muttered, “I just needed a smoke. I just needed to bloody breath.”

“Yeah, cigarettes are great for breathing.” John responded sarcastically. 

“Breathing is boring.”

“So you say.” 

The two of them sat on the front step while Sherlock feverishly smoked his way through his cigarette before lighting another under John’s disapproving gaze. Honestly though, John felt happy. Sherlock being agitated and frustrated almost felt as if things were normal again, as long as he didn’t think about the fact that Sherlock was probably trying to stave of a food induced panic attack by smoking like it was a race. When Sherlock made to pull out a third cigarette, John cleared his throat. 

“Sherlock, that’s enough, I’m serious you could give yourself a heart attack.”

“Fine!” Sherlock snapped, shoving the pack and his lighter down into his pockets. He stood, and stomped his way back to the flat, depositing his coat and shoes by the door before flopping on the sofa. 

John had decided that today he needed to check Sherlock over, get a real weight reading, make sure that his cuts were healing up alright. Sherlock was definitely not in the mood, but he reasoned Sherlock would never be in the mood, and he would rather deal with a pissed of detective than one on the verge of tears. 

“If you’re going to stay here, I need to check you over, to know exactly what we’re working with.” Sherlock made no indication he had heard.

“Sherlock, I need to weigh you and check your cuts and vitals.” John said with a huff. 

“No.” Sherlock responded.

“Sherlock, if you went to a clinic, they would do all those things, and they wouldn’t be as nice about it either.”

“I can take my own vitals and weight and tell you.” Sherlock said starting to get that nervous panicked look on his face.

“Look, I’m a doctor, and besides, I don’t trust you to be honest with me, or take care of yourself properly!”

  
  


Sherlock frowned, he deserved that, but he still didn’t want John examining him.

John spoke again. “Look, if you're uncomfortable with me doing it, we can get someone else to do it, but it needs to get done. Today, or at least by tomorrow.”

Sherlock reevaluated, as much as he didn’t want John looking at him, anyone else would be worse. Besides, if they went to any hospital or clinic, Mycroft would find out about it and have him locked up in no time. God, he could still feel the food sitting disgustingly heavy in his gut, and it was already on to the next unpleasant and upsetting experience. 

“Fine,” he grumbled standing up, “What first?”

“Wait here,” John said, leaving to fetch the scale that he had no doubtable hidden somewhere he didn’t think Sherlock would look. When he returned and placed the scale on the floor, Sherlock stood, and was about to step on when John stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Turn around first.” 

“Seriously?” Sherlock asked, annoyed.

“Yep.” John said matter of factly. Sherlock turned and stepped onto the scale listening to the dial spin. Sherlock heard John’s breathing change slightly, but he couldn’t tell if it was due to relief or worry, or which one he wanted it to be. 

“Right. Let’s move to the kitchen.” He said, picking up the scale as Sherlock stepped off of it. He carried it and deposited it on the kitchen counter, and went to grab his medical bag. Sherlock itched to pull the scale off the counter and see what he really weighed, but John was already walking back down the stairs. 

“Shirt.” He ordered and Sherlock enthusiastically pulled his shirt over his head. 

“Up on the table.” John proceeded to listen to Sherlock’s heart and lungs, test his reflexes, and take his blood pressure.

“Okay,” John said, “I’m going to take off the dressings now.” Sherlock forced himself to breath slowly. Trying to drown out the screaming in his head with the mantra of  _ trust John, trust John, trust John.  _ John unwrapped the dressing on his arms, then his chest and stomach, looking closely and the cuts, and checking his stitches. 

“I’m going to draw some blood now.” Sherlock just sat stock still, distancing his mind from his body as much as possible, while John collected the blood he needed. When he was finished John handed him a washcloth and a clean towel. 

“Go wash up, soap and water on the washcloth for your body and you can wash your hair under the faucet in the tub, just try not to get the rest of you too wet. When you're done, I can re-dress your cuts, then lunch” Sherlock snatched the towels and rushed off into the bathroom, happy to escape John’s gaze. 

 

Finally getting clean, was a blessing. A good night’s sleep, boosted blood sugar, and a good wash worked miracles. Sherlock might have even felt good, were it not for getting re-wrapped and the promise of another meal. 

John made him scrambled eggs, two slices of buttered toast, steamed broccoli, a cup of tea, and vitamins.  He sat down across the table from Sherlock with an identical plate, before putting in his headphones and opening his laptop between them.

Sherlock started with the vitamins, washing them down with some tea. He could tell that John had added sugar, but tried his best to ignore the sickly sweetness on his tongue. Picking up his fork, he swallowed down the broccoli next knowing of all the items on the plate it would have the least calories. Flicking his gaze at John’s plate, he saw that the doctor was already almost finished. Sherlock gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the fork. Looking at his plate all he could see was the fatty shine of the eggs, and the greasy butter on the toast. He felt panic starting to grip around his lungs, he closed his eyes, and focused on breathing deeply.  _ Calm down and get on with it.  _ He told himself. When he opened his eyes, he saw that John was looking at him with a concerned look on face, but quickly cast his eyes back down to his laptop screen. Sherlock scowled, he didn’t like how John looked at him like that, like he was an injured baby bird, how pathetic he must seem.  _ No, stop it! Just eat your food, maybe then he won’t look at you like that.  _

He managed to eat one slice of toast and about a third of the eggs before he felt like he might be sick right at the table. He tapped John’s hand, and waited until he had pulled out his headphones.

“I’m finished.” John looked down at his plate. 

“No you’re not.”

“I can’t eat anymore, I feel like i’m going to be sick.”

“Does your brain feel like you’re going to be sick or does your body.”

“How the hell am I supposed to know!” Sherlock snapped.

“You have to try and finish it,” John gave him a pleading look, “Please you have to try.”

Sherlock glowered at him, but snatched up his fork. He only managed a few more bites before it was too much. He pushed his chair away from the table and darted into the living room, knowing that John would stop him if he tried to go anywhere else. He paced around the room, pulling at his hair, while John watched from the kitchen doorway. 

“Sherlock,” John started, but the detective cut him off. 

“I can’t eat anymore John. I’m sorry, but if I eat any more I won’t be able to keep it down. I just can’t.” Sherlock shouted. John was giving him that look again. The detective turned away and continued his pacing. 

“Sit down.” John said firmly.

“Why?” Sherlock responded angrily, “Thinking I’m going to give myself a heart attack walking about the flat?!”

John took a deep breath, his I’m trying to be patient with Sherlock breath, before saying,

“No, but we need to talk.”


	24. Hard News

“I think you need to go to a clinic.” 

John sat opposite Sherlock at the kitchen table, and watched as the detective narrowed his eyes.

“You said that we could figure out something else.” The detective said, crossing his arms across his chest.

“That was before I checked you over, and saw how difficult it was going to be for you to eat.” John was keeping his voice even, praying that Sherlock could remain calm, and be part of making a rational decision rather than just shutting down. 

“I won’t go to a clinic.” The detective snapped.

“Would you at least hear me out?” John pleaded. When there was no response, he took that as permission to proceed. “There are many ways that a clinic could help you that I can’t do on my own from home. Your heart rate is quite low and your weight was worse than I expected. At a clinic, they would be more prepared in the case that you have a cardiac event, which given your situation is something I think we need to be prepared for. While I can prepare your meals at home, I am not a trained nutritionist, nor do I know how to help through your emotions surrounding food. And frankly, if you can’t finish the meals I make you might not gain any weight at all, or it may take too long and you could have major health complications before you gain the weight needed to prevent them. You need to be seeing a psychiatrist, another thing I am not, and while we could try and find you someone to see while you were still living at home, I think any good psychiatrist would have you sectioned and you would end up in a clinic anyway.” John finished, only hoping that Sherlock would listen to reason. 

“Why are you doing this? I’ve said I was sorry I couldn’t finish the food, I’ve let you poke and prod me. What have I done?” The detective said, giving John a fearful look. John was a bit taken aback, Sherlock thought he was doing this to punish him? 

“Sherlock, I’m not doing this because I’m angry with you. I just want you to get better.”

“You’re just saying that to get rid of me. I thought I could trust you.” Sherlock said frantically. “Now you’re going to betray me. You said you would help me!”

John stood up, and shouted, “I DON’T WANT YOU TO DIE!” He hadn’t meant to shout, but that was the heart of it. He was terrified that his best friend would die, and he would be all alone in the world again. 

“For fucks sake Sherlock, I can’t just sit around while this happens. I’ve deluded myself for long enough, I did nothing while you just got worse and worse. As a doctor, if you were anybody else, I would have you sectioned. The only reason I didn’t is because I care about you, and know that would really hurt you. But that makes me bad doctor, and worse, it makes me a bad friend if I can’t do something to save your life! I need you to work with me, we can find a place that you could go, you could pick someplace nice, or at least better than the others. If you can’t do that I will call Mycroft, even if it means you never speak to me again. Because if you died here, while I tried to help you, instead of getting you the help you really need I wouldn’t be able to live with myself anymore. I need you to live!” 

Sherlock sat in stunned silence, just staring at John. John was breathing hard. So much for a cool and collected talk, but at least he said what he needed to say. 

“Look, I know you want to get better,” John said, sitting back down across from Sherlock, “Which is great, and means that you can get the most out of any program you go to, but we can’t go this alone. Please trust me, and let me help you find the help you need.”

Sherlock had his arms wrapped around himself, he looked like he might bolt from the room, but instead he said in a weak voice, “I trust you, I’ll go.” Before letting out a sob. John felt relief wash over him, he rushed to the other side of the table, and dragged the detective into a hug, feeling tears start to well up in his own eyes. The detective huddled into his arms, and shook.

“I don’t want to die.” Sherlock wheezed into his shoulder. John squeezed him a little tighter. 

“We’re not gonna let that happen.” John replied. “Let’s go to the couch.” Yesterday’s crying hug had done a number on his lower back. It was only sensible.  Sherlock pulled away and they walked into the living room. By the time they were both seated, Sherlock seemed to have calmed himself down and was only sniffling. 

“Can we talk more about it now, or should we leave it till later?” John asked, not sure if Sherlock was up to continuing the conversation.

“Might as well, it’s not gonna get easier later.” Sherlock grumbled, John silently agreed. 

“Alright, so I figure we can pick any place, if it’s expensive, we can get Mycroft to pay for it, so we can do some research and decide.”

“I want you to choose. I’ll hate all the places, you would have better judgement on the matter.”

“Ok, I can do that. Anything you want from a place in particular?”

“Well, it has to be nearby so that you could visit, and I don’t want to be surrounded by teenage girls… I don’t want to go anywhere to big. Someplace where they would let me play my violin… and let me do cold cases… I really don’t know anything about it, to give informed advice.” Sherlock pouted tucking his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. 

“That’s enough for me to go on, I can do some research tonight.”

They sat beside each other in silence for a while, John wanted to ask him more questions, wanted to understand why the detective was like this. He wasn’t sure if it would go well, but their conversation about going to a clinic went better than he had expected. 

“Sherlock?” John said, getting a small nod in response, “What started all this, was it the Albertine murders?”

“Yes” Sherlock replied solemnly.

“But you’ve seen many gruesome crimes before, what was it about this one that made if different?”

“I failed. Innocent women, and their children, died because I wasn’t good enough. If I can’t save people than what is my use? My ability to solve crimes is my only good quality, other than that I’m unfriendly and unwanted. I just wanted to disappear.”

“Sherlock, you know it’s not your fault that those women died, you can’t save everyone, that would be impossible. And If you never solved another crime again, I would still want to be your friend.” The last sentence caught the detective's attention and he whipped his head to look at John.

“Why?” He said with a genuine look of confusion on his face. 

“Because I like you! And unlike everybody else, I bothered to get to know you well enough to know you aren't just an anti-social asshole. I know that you care, and I know that you want to help. You may have everybody else fooled, but I know that most of the time, you don’t mean to piss people off, that you aren’t cold, you just don’t understand how to deal with people, it’s possibly the only thing you aren't good at. You’re brilliant, and talented, and when you try and aren’t under pressure, you can be kind. You’re my best friend.”

Sherlock looked at John in shocked amazement. He wasn’t really able to process what the doctor was saying, so he stored it away for further examination, and changed the subject. 

“It wasn’t just the albertine murders.” He blurted.

“No?” John said, noticing that the detective was changing the subject, but willing to hear whatever the detective had to say. 

“It happened before when I was at school.”

“Yeah? Why was that, do you think.”

“Everybody hated me, and some weren’t afraid to let me know about it in the form of violence. I didn’t want anybody to see me. It made school more tolerable. I was in control.”

“Did anybody notice you were sick?”

“Not really, when they did, I fooled them far more easily than I fooled you.” John felt a pang of guilt in his stomach. He had been fooled, but he knew now and he was doing something about it. That had to mean something. 

“And how did you get better?”

“Cocain. Well, I suppose that wasn’t really better, but I stopped worrying about food.” Sherlock sighed, “When I got clean I had the work, which helped, but some of the thoughts came back, just in the back of my mind, but I was in control of myself and they were background noise. Then I met you and it was even easier to ignore, but I guess that only lasted so long. It got out of control. I can hardly think straight. I feel like I know that I want to get better, that I need to get better, but then I try and eat and it all goes out the window and I’m straight back to feeling like it was better before, that I really am better without food. My head is all twisted. I don’t even know what I think or how I’m feeling most of the time. I don’t know how to make it stop… If it will ever stop.”

“It will get better, I know you can do this.” John said, pulling the detective closer.

Sherlock sighed and muttered “I hope you’re right.”


	25. Moving Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John finds a program he thinks will be good for Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone,  
> It's been over a year since I have posted, sorry to those who have been itching for more. My urge to write comes and goes, and I can't force it when it isn't there. I have also been spending allot of this last year working on my mental health, and I am well into my recovery from my eating disorder, and it has been 9 months since I have self harmed. I have left college which was a toxic environment for me, and am now pursuing my creative interests, possibly to become a tattoo artist. I fell in love. My girlfriend and I will have know each other for a year on May 25th. So much has been happening and most of it good. 
> 
> As for the future of this story? Well, we will see. I am feeling up to writing more now, but I have some worries that writing about this will make me feel depressed, so if that happens I will be taking another break. Hopefully I will feel up to continuing writing especially since Sherlock is starting his road to recovery. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading, especially those of you who have read from the beginning, sorry for the wait. Please leave comments with your thoughts on the story. Hearing from you is one of the most encouraging things that keeps me writing.

After Sherlock went bed, upon John’s insistence, John opened his laptop and began to do some research. By the early hours of the morning he had found a place that he thought might fit. It was a small program called foundation stone. Having only twelve to fifteen patients at a time, the programs mission was to help those with mental illness recover without what they saw as the damaging aspect of being isolated from the real world and having no control over their own lives. All patients were adults, and had their own rooms. While the program was not specifically for those with eating disorders, they were equipped to handle patients with those issues. The programs was housed in a formal residential building, one block away from a hospital. Patients would attend group therapy, individual therapy, meals and activities in the house, and would take regular trips to the hospital to see a doctor, psychiatrist, and in sherlock's case a nutritionist. Working in the house where four therapists, and 10 caregivers who all rotated shifts, always keeping a two to one ratio between patients and staff. What John liked most was the amount of self directed time, and the graduating levels of security. The building used key cards as well as id codes on the doors, patient's first entering the program were not allowed to leave the building alone, but as they made progress, they could get door access and leave the building at different times during the day, until they were well enough to switch from residential treatment to an outpatient program. Visiting hours were long and the house was in Holloway only a 30 minute drive away. 

John watched a video of the director speak about the program, and was pleased to find that she seemed extremely intelligent and level headed without any indication of a being some sort of bleeding heart which he knew Sherlock would absolutely hate. His mind was made up this was the best place. Looking at the programs price tag made him cringe a bit but he figured they could get Mycroft to foot the bill. He was tempted call Mycroft right away, and get it all arranged but then decided it would be best to wait until the morning and to talk to Sherlock first. 

 

The next morning he was up before Sherlock, as was strangely becoming the norm. He made the detective breakfast before going and waking him. He watched the news, until Sherlock had finished his breakfast. John was relieved since dinner the night before hadn’t gone much better than lunch. 

John was about to broach the subject of the foundation stone program when Sherlock, started putting on his coat and shoes. “Where are you going?” Johns asked.

“To have a smoke.” Sherlock replied as though John should have known, and to be fair he probably should have.

“Just one this time.” John called after the detective who was already at the bottom of the stairs, while he scrambled to put on his shoes and catch up with the detective. 

John waited until sherlock was halfway through his cigarette. John had deciding that this was the best time, seeing as enough nicotine had entered his system that Sherlock would be calmer, and there was enough cigarette left to smoke to get him through the conversation. John cleared his throat, “So, I found a place I think would be good.” Sherlock gave little indication of hearing, as John explained the pros of foundation stone. When John was finished talking, sherlock took one last drag on his cigarette, getting more filter than tobacco before stubbing the butt out on the pavement. “Fine.” Sherlock said, as he turned to walk back into the building. 

“I’ll be up in a minute,” John replied, waiting for the door to close before calling mycroft.  


	26. Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock accepts that he will be going to the clinic.

Johns conversation with Mycroft was short and to the point. There wasn’t that much to be discussed, Mycroft said he could have everything set up for tomorrow evening. When they were finished John went back up to the flat to find Sherlock in his room lying on his bed with the lights off.

“Sherlock,” John said quietly not sure if the detective was sleeping.

“Yes?” Sherlock said in a voice that sounded too calm. John regretted having left the detective alone, he could have purged.

“Did you purge?” John nervously asked figuring he should just be straightforward about it, but not wanting to upset the detective.

“No John.” Sherlock replied in that same calm, flat sounding voice.

“Are you alright?” John asked immediately realizing what a stupid question that was. Sherlock said nothing.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” John wanted to do something, anything that would make this easier.

“I would like to be alone.”

When John hesitated, Sherlock continued, “I’m not going to do anything, I just need some time.” For some reason John believed it was true. Regardless he didn’t want to make things harder by refusing to leave. So he shut the door and returned to the living room. Opening his laptop to do some reading, but listening carefully for any noise that might come from Sherlock’s room.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sherlock slowly walked up the steps, into the flat, into his dark bedroom, and then lay back on top of his bedsheets without even taking off his shoes. He stared blankly into the darkness. He didn’t even know how he was feeling. Perhaps empty was the right was to describe it. Defeated might be more accurate, but it was a calm sort of defeat the peace of knowing that things were out of his hands. The loss of control would usually make him panicked of furious, but now he was too tired. He was ready to surrender, to give up. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, but was bearable in a way that many of his recent feelings had not been. He could feel the food in his stomach as though there was a stone resting on top of him, and he couldn’t muster up the motivation to feel much about it. It was how it was, and he couldn’t fight it anymore.

John came into his room, Sherlock turned to look at him and answered his questions, the words didn’t stir up any stress or frustration. John left and Sherlock turned his head back to look blankly towards the ceiling.

He lay motionless, how long for he had no way of telling. Eventually he felt warm tears running from his eyes, but there were no sobs, no pain in his chest, he felt emptiness. It just a physical release, the pouring out of any resistance. Soon he fell asleep.

When John woke him the next morning, he remembered that though the first battle may be over the war had just begun. He had given in, given up, but the _doing_ was not going to be easy. Over breakfast, John told him that he would be leaving to go the foundation stone house at six, after having dinner at home, he listed what Sherlock should pack, the agenda of his first night and so on. Sherlock just listened and ate silently. Swallowed each mouthful trying to ignore the protests of his stomach and throat, his mind. It felt easier to get it over with than to resist it.

 “Sherlock?” John interrupted the foggy dullness of Sherlock’s thoughts, “did you get all of that.”

“Sort of,” Sherlock answered honestly, “could you just make me a list of things to pack and I will deal with the rest when I get there.”

“Sure,” John responded.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John was not sure what to make of Sherlock behavior. Before the man seemed overcome by emotions, sadness, terror, and anger. Now there was nothing. John hoped that the detectives despondence was not a sinister sign. Thankfully, it would soon no longer be his job to make sure the detective was safe. Not that he wouldn’t care of course, and while he felt guilty about it, he was relieved that Sherlock was no longer going to his responsibility.  

Sherlock stood and went to the door putting his coat on, John got up to follow the detective out for his smoke. John sat beside Sherlock, waiting for something to happen, but the younger man just smoked silently, his expression blank, before stubbing out his cigarette and turning to return to the flat. John followed unnerved by the detectives silence. Sherlock sat on the sofa knowing he wouldn’t be allowed to be alone for forty minutes after eating. John sat down beside him.

“Shall we watch something?” John asked.

“Sure.” Sherlock responded.

“What would you like to watch.” John prodded hoping that the detective would give him more of a response, but the detective just shrugged. John turned the channel to some program about the evolution of early architecture, that he hoped would be neutral and maybe even interesting to Sherlock. When forty minutes had passed, Sherlock stood up and said, “I’m going to my room to lie down, when you’ve written a packing list come and wake me,” before walking down the hall leaving john totally perplexed.   


	27. Preperations

Sherlock lay down in bed, stomach still uncomfortably full even after 40 minutes. Something is his brain was whispering to run away to never be found to escape his fate of going to the clinic and being forced to eat over and over again. But the much larger part of him was too tired to listen to that voice anymore. Even though he was full of dread, he wanted to stop hurting the people around him, he wanted to stop hurting John.

He wondered if things could ever go back to the way they were. If John could ever see him the same way again after all this struggle. He has lived his whole life without anybody knowing the dark things that circled in his head, and now John knew. 

His thoughts began to prepare for entering the clinic. What questions were they going to ask him, what would he say. Before long he was deep into hypothetical conversations with hypothetical doctors, when John knocked on his door before entering. 

“Here’s the list of things to pack,” John said putting the list down on Sherlock's dresser, “would you like help packing?”

“No thank you,” Sherlock replied as got up from bed. He went to his closet to fetch his suitcase, and noticed that John still hadn’t left. Turing around Sherlock said “What is it?” 

“Nothing. It’s just that you have been strangely quiet, no fuss over breakfast or anything. Are you mad at me, because I would understand. I know this is hard…”

“I’m not mad at you,” Sherlock interrupted, “I’m just tired… I don’t want to make things any more difficult. For either of us.”

“Alright... but Sherlock I don’t want you to feel guilty about sharing things with me, or needing help. You deserve the help you need. I just don’t think I know how to give that to you. I’m not sending you away for being difficult.”

“I know John.”

John turned to leave. “John?”  Sherlock called after him. 

“Yes Sherlock?”

“Thank you, for helping me.”

John was a bit surprised, after what Sherlock had said before, that he had trusted John and John has betrayed him and wanted to get rid of him. But Sherlock had allot of conflicting feelings right now he supposed. “Of course Sherlock, anytime.” John closed the door gently behind him. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

John was sitting in the living room, reading the news on his laptop, when Sherlock came out of his room and deposited his suitcase by the front door. He was fully dressed in what would have been his sharpest of cloths, and while they still hung off him, he didn’t look nearly as terrible as he had just days ago. A slight boost in blood sugar and a wash can do wonders for a person. He crossed the living room to pack up his violin, which until now he hadn’t touched in weeks. John hoped that soon the detective would be back to his usual antics of waking him at all hours with his playing. Sherlock packed away his music and instrument quietly and meticulously, before placing it next to his suitcase. He sat down in his chair across from John, and stared until John closed his laptop. 

“What is it Sherlock.”

“I don’t know, isn’t there more to be done before I leave?”

“No, just to have your things. They will have you fill out all the paperwork when you get there.”

Sherlock sat there looking putout. 


	28. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock goes to Foundation Stone.

It was 5:45, Sherlock had finished dinner 20 minutes ago, and sat silently on the couch looking at the door waiting for Mycroft to show up to take him to Foundation Stone. His stomach was heavy, and so were his thoughts. It was a struggle to just sit there and wait, to not DO something, but what could he do? Run? Keep living like this? Lose John? Die? No there was nothing else to be done. Nothing but to wait, nothing but to go, nothing but to get better. Sherlock wondered if he could “get better”, but surely anything would be better than this. He had finally reached the point where the pain of hurting others, exhaustion, depression, and loneliness were worse than the pain he felt from eating. He had finally realized that it was easier to eat, even if his mind was screaming and his heart racing. 

 

John kept sneaking looks into the living room as he did the washing up, to make sure Sherlock was still there, and hadn’t collapsed or something. He could see Sherlock gripping his knees in his white knuckled hands and staring blankly at the door. He clearly didn’t need to watch the door to know when Mycroft’s arrived, since he jumped off the couch, and stated “He’s here,” before he possibly could have heard the knocker on the door at the bottom of the stairs. He went to grab his suitcase, but John grabbed it before him, not wanting Sherlock to over exert himself walking down the stairs with something heavy. Sherlock gave him an annoyed look, but put on his coat and picked up his violin instead. They opened the flat’s door just as Mycroft and reached the landing. 

They loaded Sherlock’s things into the car. John opened the door to sit in the back, but Sherlock stopped him. “You don’t have to come," Sherlock said flatly. John began to protest, but Mycroft cleared his throat, in a way that said hurry up with your goodbyes. “Alright,” John yielded, and wrapped his arms around Sherlock in a gripping hug, “I’ll see you soon”. Sherlock did not hug him back. John hoped this was a sign that things would go back to normal soon. He let Sherlock go. “John.” Sherlock said with a curt nod before getting into the car. John stood on the sidewalk as they drove away. He had no idea what to do with himself now.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

They pulled up in front of the Foundation Stone House, a beautiful old mansion with a brick perimeter wall and wrought iron gate. Mycroft took Sherlock’s things and walked with him up to the front gate, hitting the buzzer. “Hello?” A voice came over the intercom. 

“Hello, this is Mycroft Holmes to check in Sherlock Holmes.” 

“Of course someone will be with you in a moment.” 

A woman came out of the front door and walked to the gate. Sherlock wasn’t sure what to make of her, she wasn’t dressed like a doctor or nurse, just in what might be described as a business casual skirt and cardigan combination. She opened the gate with an ID card and let them in. “Hello, I’m Margaret, one of the nurses here, I’ll be checking you in.” She said with a wave indicating that they should follow. The gate closed behind them with a buzz, and Sherlock couldn’t help but feel a pang of fear at the sound. 

Walking into the house, Sherlock found that the inside of the house, like the outside looked like, well, a house not a hospital. Though as they walked through a kind of living room to a small office, he did notice the lack of anything lying about that was sharp or could be used as a projectile. None of the scissors or paperweights you might find in your regular home, and all of the furniture was clearly too heavy to be picked up and thrown. Now Sherlock wished he had payed a bit more attention while John told him about this place, because it was not at all what he had expected. 

Margaret taped her key card to let them into the office. The door did not look like the heavy duty doors that would keep patients out of an office, but the heavy old wood door now fitted with a new locking mechanism was just that. They sat down across the desk from Margaret and she walked them through the paperwork, well, walked Mycroft through the paperwork that is. It wasn’t until the end that a paper was set in front of Sherlock. “Now Sherlock this release states that you consent to our medical care, and that you will stay here for the duration of your treatment, once you sign this we can start to get you settled.” Sherlock stared at the paper and was suddenly paralyzed. The voice in his head screamed, “This is your last chance to run, you don’t have to let this happen, don’t sign the paper!”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft's voice broke through his thoughts, “You need to sign.” The voice had been interrupted, and gave Sherlock the moment of peace needed to sign, besides even if he ran now, Mycroft would stop him, John would stop him, or he would just stop all together, one could only run for so long. 

“Well that’s all settled then,” Margaret said standing up, “Mycroft we will see you off and then I will show Sherlock his room.” They walked to the front door this time passing a few patients in the living room, a girl scribbling furiously in a sketchbook and an older man reading. At the door, Mycroft stood awkwardly looking at Sherlock’s downturned eyes. Finally, he cleared his throat and Sherlock looked up. “Sherlock, you can do this,” Mycroft said. Sherlock just stared at him. Unsure of what else he could say, Mycroft just buttoned his jacket and was lead out by another nurse. “Well now the boss is gone, the fun can begin aye?” Margaret said giving Sherlock a nudge and a wink, when he just looked confused she moved on. Sherlock picked up his violin, and she picked up his suitcase, “I’ll show you to your room.” She led him up the stairs to a room at the end of that hall. A few doors were open along the way and Sherlock saw patients of various ages reading, listening to music, and in one room two patients sitting together and talking. They reached what was to be his room, and Margaret opened the door. 

The walls were white, but not the sterile white of a hospital, but the creamy off-white that might be found in any house. There was a bed, a dresser, a desk, a chair, and a closet. None of the furniture matched, the room looked similar to the guest room missus Hudson kept in her apartment. There was also a small window cut into the door with a little curtain covering it from the outside so that patients could be checked on in the night, beside that and the lack of any decoration it looked like a perfectly normal room. She placed Sherlock's bag on the floor and he placed his violin on the desk. “I’ll show you the attendant and bathroom on the hall, you will get a full tour tomorrow.” They walked to the other end of the hall where they rounded the corner. There was a young man sitting at a desk reading a magazine. He looked up at them, “This is Toby, he is another one of the nurses here, you can tell who the nurses are because our cards and lanyards are orange, patients have blue ones. Anyway, there will always be someone here if you need anything. I will show you the bathroom also but until you get access you will need to get the attendant to let you in.” 

Sherlock was feeling dazed, in some ways the house seemed normal, unexpectedly so, but the locked doors and key cards put him on edge. The fact that he would need someone to accompany him to the bathroom didn’t surprise him after John watching him so closely, but it did remind him of where he was. This was not a house, not a home, but a ward, a ward he would be locked inside of until further notice. Margaret walked him back down the hall and used her keycard to enter the bathroom, there were stalls with doors that closed but did not lock, and showers, as well as a chair against the wall by the sinks where a nurse could sit and listen while you relieved yourself. 

She walked him back to his room, where he sat on his bed and she pulled up a chair to sit across from him. “This is your key card,” she said handing him a card on a blue lanyard with "S. Holmes" printed on it. “This card lets you into all of the places you are allowed to go, which is anywhere in the house other than the bathrooms, the kitchen, the offices, and other patient's rooms. Most of the places you can go right now you don’t need a key to get into, but soon you will gain access to more places, including the grounds, and eventually even the front gate. You need this card to get into your room, only you and nurses have the key to your room, you need to keep the door open if other patients visit. Ok?” Sherlock nodded, he could hardly imagine that any of the other patients would want to spend time with him in his room. 

“You have a busy day tomorrow, so I’ll leave you get some rest soon. Tomorrow you will get a full tour, your schedule, and go to the hospital to have a physical exam, and meet your nutritionist and psychiatrist, then you will meet your therapist here.” She paused and looked at Sherlock, “Do you have any questions Sherlock?” Sherlock had a lot of questions, but he was too overwhelmed by all this new information to ask any of them. Well, there was one question he needed to ask, “Could I use the bathroom now?” “Of course,” Margaret responded brightly. Sherlock’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment as they walked down the hall to the bathroom. He was telling himself that he didn’t need to feel embarrassed that this was a totally normal to the nurse, but as she let him into the bathroom he accidentally made eye contact with the patient across the hall who had their door open. It was the girl who had been drawing downstairs. He turned away quickly, cheeks burning, he thought “She knows why I’m here now, knows that I purge, she could tell everyone!” and then heart sinking even further, “Not that they won’t all find out soon enough, they will all see me being let into the bathroom or the kitchen eventually.” 

It took Sherlock a minute to relax enough to relieve himself with a nurse sitting outside the door and listening. When he was finished he washed his hands, noticing that there were no mirrors in the bathroom. “It’s so they can make you fat without you seeing” the voice in his head whispered. Sherlock shook his head, “Shut up!” he said under his breath. Suddenly he remembered that Margaret was still there watching him, and snapped his head back up. Seeing his worried expression she just smiled at him. She once again led him back to his room, and said “I’ll be back in one moment," before ducking out the door. Sherlock turned on his bedside lamp and turned off the overhead light before sitting on his bed. The voice in his head hardly had time to start berating him before the nurse returned. She handed him a little cup with two pills in it and a glass of water. She said “these will help you relax and sleep.” 

“What are these” Sherlock asked?

“I can’t tell you what your medication is yet. You are on what we call 'blind treatment'. You don’t get to know what medications you are taking, what your meal plan is, or much about your treatment until we know that it is a good idea to tell you.” 

Seeing Sherlock’s confusion she continued, “Some patients are afraid of certain medications or seek out certain drugs, sometime people are distressed to hear that they have a particular diagnosis or things like that. If we think knowing something will help you we will tell you, but until we know we don’t tell you”

The voice in Sherlock’s head started in, “Don’t even think about taking those, they are trying to sedate you, control you. You-” 

Margaret interrupted, “We won’t force you to take them, at least not tonight, but I highly recommend taking them. I think they will help you. How have you been sleeping?”

“I sleep all the time,” Sherlock said defensively, “I’m too tired to do anything anyway.”

“Do you sleep at night or during the day?”

“It depends,” Sherlock replied hesitantly, “why?”

“Well for patients who have irregular sleep patterns medication can help them sleep at night so that they can stay awake during the day.”

Sherlock had to admit that this made some sense, he did seem to stay awake trapped in worries until his body just couldn’t take anymore and passed out. He still didn’t really want to take the pills but he wanted this conversation to be over so Margaret would leave him alone. He swallowed pills with a sip of water. Margaret stood, “Goodnight Sherlock. Someone will check on you through the window periodically through the night. Someone will be at the other end of the hall if you need anything. I will be back tomorrow morning,” She said closing the door behind her. 

Sherlock sat still on the bed for several minutes before taking off his shoes and jacket and rolling back onto his bed and turning off the light. He thought about getting his pajamas out of his suitcase but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He wasn’t sure what to think of this place. He wasn’t sure how he was feeling either. The voice in his head was silent, but he felt a deep and heavy hurt in his chest. He knew he had felt this feeling before, and tonight he remembered when he had first felt it. It was when he was eight and had been left at boarding school for the first time. Homesickness. But he was not homesick for 221B or his childhood home, or for any place in particular. It was the  _ feeling _ of home, the feeling that he was safe and where he was meant to be. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like that, but that was what he was homesick for. He cried until he fell asleep.


	29. Foot in the Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's first morning at foundation stone.

On her drive home from work Margaret thought about the new patient at the house. She had a bit of a silly side, and could sometimes gauge the state of mind of a patient based on how they reacted to this. When Sherlock had just looked puzzled at her joke about “the boss” leaving, she could tell Sherlock had a long way to go. When he hardly spoke for the rest of the evening she got a pretty clear picture. He was trapped in his head. A lot of the patients who stayed at the house were, especially when they started out, but not all of them. Some were too much outside of their head, she thought, remembering a woman who could not watch news, or hear of other people's hardships without feeling them as if they were her own. In Margaret's opinion it was better to feel  _ something _ when other people suffered than to numb yourself to it as many did, but of course the pain of the whole world is too much for one person. But this Sherlock, we was deep inside that head of his, at times it was unclear if he was even aware of or processing what she had been saying. She wondered what he was thinking about, she knew from reading his file that he was a detective, and that reminded her of a newspaper story she had read, in which she thought he had been mentioned. Anyway, an interesting life, but she thought all of the residents were interesting. She would see him again in the morning. Perhaps a good night’s sleep will help him out of that big brain of his, she thought. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sherlock was lying in his bed. He had woken up from the light streaming in through his window and was staring and the moving shadows of the leaves of a tree that must be standing outside. He felt empty, as he had mostly been feeling the last few days. He wondered how long he would feel like this. It was better than constantly freaking out, feeling wild and out of control, feeling too much, but it wasn’t good either. He suspected that it wouldn’t last long, it felt somewhat like the dreadful calm before the storm, or in this case calm between the storms. 

He was lost in the sunshine dappling his walls when there was a knock on his door and Margaret peeked her head in. “It’s time for breakfast Sherlock, I’ll give you a few minutes to get ready before coming back. Ok?” She stood there waiting until Sherlock nodded. He lay in bed for another minute trying to find a reason to get up. He was not at all looking forward to breakfast or any of the other things he had to do today. Just this, watching the light on the wall, it was easy, why would he get up and do all those hard things. Eventually he sat up knowing that if he didn’t get up now the nurse would just come back and make him and that would be worse than if he just did it himself, but also a small part of him remembered life back when he had better things to do than watch light on the wall and wanted that life back.

He changed into new clothes and got his toiletries out of his suitcase, before sitting back down on the bed. Margaret soon returned “Ready to go to the dining room?” She asked. In response Sherlock just held up his toothbrush. “Oh, yeah we can do that first.” As they walked to the bathroom Sherlock could hear people talking downstairs, and began to feel nervous. As he brushed his teeth he started to wonder what the other residents would be like. The ones he had seen yesterday seemed normal enough, more normal that he had expected. That was reassuring except… what would they think of him, would he once again be the strangest freak in the room?  When he had been brushing his teeth for a good four minutes Margaret piped up, “I think that’s good enough, if you carry on like that you will rub your teeth right away!” 

Downstairs they walked down the hall to the back of the house where all the talking was coming from. They entered the dining room where there were two large tables with about ten people at each. A man with an orange lanyard waved at them from the far end of one of the tables. “That’s Andreas,” Margaret said, “He will be sitting with you while you eat breakfast. He has gotten a tray ready for you. Go on over.” So Sherlock went and sat next to the man. “Good morning. You must be Sherlock, I’m Andreas,” the nurse said reaching out to shake Sherlock’s hand, but when Sherlock didn’t take it he just pushed a tray loaded with breakfast items in front of Sherlock. It was more food than John had been having him eat. “Do I have to eat all of this?” Sherlock asked meekly. “Well today is perhaps the only day that you don’t. You won’t be seeing the nutritionist until later, so we don’t actually have a meal plan for you yet. This is just standard first day fair. But if you don’t eat enough at breakfast and lunch then tonight at dinner you will have to make up for it. You will have gotten your meal plan by then. Just do you best.” This was almost worse than if he had just said that Sherlock had to eat all of it because having the choice to stop made it so much harder to keep on going. 

He got through his bowl of oatmeal and was struggling with some peach slices when the girl with the sketchbook sat down across from him. She had red hair and a round face. “Good morning, I’m Alexandra, and you are new.” She said taking an enthusiastic bite out of a bagel slathered in cream cheese, and pointing at Sherlock. Sherlock looked at her confused for a minute until he processed what she had just said. “I’m Sherlock, and yes I am new… obviously,” Sherlock replied looking back down at his tray, he didn’t really want to be talking to this girl, he was already feeling nervous over his meal. “Oh we will have to whip this one into shape won’t we Andreas,” she said elbowing the nurse. “Hey! Be nice.” Andreas replied sternly, “Not everyone has as much energy as you do in the morning. Isn’t that right Sherlock?” Sherlock didn’t look up his cheeks were flushing with the embarrassment of not knowing how to act, so he just stared the glossy syrup on his peach slices. “I’m nice!” Alexandra said defensively, “It’s not my fault that he’s acting weird.” And with that Sherlock stood up and raced up to his room, he would have gone to the bathroom and vomited if he had access, clearly they were right about locking him out. 

He curled up on his bed. It would always happen like this, he thought. He would never fit in and please others, creepy, weirdo, freak it all amounted to the same thing, not someone you wanted around. He was getting lost in these thoughts when there was a knock on the door “It’s Andreas”. When Sherlock didn’t get up to answer it, the nurse said “I’m going to come in now.” Andreas used his card and entered Sherlock’s room carrying the tray of food that Sherlock left downstairs. At the sight of it Sherlock buried his face in his pillow, and immediately felt embarrassed for his childlike behavior. He took a deep breath and composed himself before sitting up.  “Do you think you can eat any more of this?” Andreas asked gently. “Yes,” Sherlock said firmly sounding much more sure of himself than he actually was. Andreas handed him the tray and took a seat across from Sherlock. He didn’t like that Andreas was watching him while he was trying to eat, “Could I have some privacy?” he asked already knowing the answer. “No sorry, I need to watch to be sure of what you eat and what you leave.” Sherlock looked down at the tray in determination, first to finish the peach slices. He moved at a glacial pace through the fruit, yogurt, sausages, but left the toast and orange juice because he felt uncomfortably full, like he might vomit without even trying. “Can you eat any more?” Andreas asked when Sherlock put down his fork. Sherlock shook his head “I feel sick, if I eat anymore I won’t be able to keep it down.”  Andreas nodded, “Your body isn’t used to handling food after so much time, it will take a bit for it to adjust. Ready for your tour?” Sherlock scrubbed his hands down his face, “I need a smoke first.” 

Andreas waited for Sherlock to put on his shoes, before bringing him out to the back porch. The porch was wide and had a swinging bench on either side of the door. It looked out over a garden and a large lawn that had trees and benches scattered about. Sherlock could see a couple of patients walking around with Margrett. Andreas gave Sherlock one of cigarettes that he had brought with him. He had turned over his cigarettes, lighter, shoelaces and belt, which was awkward because his pants didn’t fit and he had to keep pulling them up. After lighting Sherlock’s cigaret Andreas stood beside him in silence for a moment, before another patient came out of the house and asked to speak with him. “You alright on your own for a minute Sherlock?”  he nodded and Andreas walked a few steps away so he could speak with the other patient privately but still watch Sherlock. Taking a seat on the steps Sherlock let the nicotine rush over him and his mind go blank. 

He was roused from this state by a voice behind him. “Hey,” Sherlock looked around to see Alexandra with her own cigarette, “I’m sorry about what I said earlier, it wasn’t very considerate, sometimes it seems like things come out of my mouth before I have even thought them… mind if I sit?” Sherlock shrugged and Alexandra plopped down beside him. “I don’t really think your weird you know,” she said, “I actually think you’re quite interesting.” 

Puzzled, Sherlock responded, “How can you think I’m interesting, you don’t know a single thing about me.”

“Well I guess mostly I think you’re interesting to draw, but I also saw your violin case so I know you play an instrument which is cool, and I know a couple other things about you but they would be rude to say.”

“Like what?” Sherlock asked hesitantly.

“Like that you have an eating disorder and are a suicide and self harm risk.” She responded. 

It wasn’t an attack, but it felt like one and Sherlock finally took a minute to look at her seriously. Her clothes were a mix of old and new, cheap and expensive, so had recently come into money. She wore two wedding rings around her neck. If it were a dead spouse or fear of losing her own ring there would only be one, so dead parents then. That, and the way that she dragged down the smoke of her cigarette told him everything he needed to know.

“Addict, orphan, after the death of one parent you became estranged from the other, when they died you inherited a lot of money. Grief and money often equals drug abuse. Should I guess your drug of choice?” When Sherlock finished his deductions, Alexandra looked surprised but not upset. Then she smirked.

“Ha! I guess I deserved that, how the hell do you know all of that anyway?”

“I pay attention.”

“What a gigantic lie! You were a million miles away at breakfast.”

“Well I can pay attention if I try… sometimes.” He was feeling self conscious again, he used to see all these things without even having to try, his mind was trashed right now, stupid, worthless...

“Well I pay attention too,” Alexandra cut in on his thoughts, “and you are interesting to draw.”

When Sherlock didn’t respond immediately she produced her sketchbook. “Here look,” she said opening to a drawing. It was just the bridge of his nose to his eyebrows but the eyes were accurately and undeniably Sherlock’s. Sherlock himself was a fair draftsman with his trained eye and fine motor skills, but this was something different. The lines that built up the face were loose and twisting, it was amazing that such marks could create such a clear and unmistakable likeness. Even Sherlock would call it artistic genius. 

“When did you draw this? You have hardly seen me.” Sherlock asked in amazement. 

“Like I said, I pay attention. I can draw anything I see even if it’s just for a moment.”

She turned the page and there was a drawing of Mycroft and Sherlock walking through the living room from the night before. Sherlock almost laughed at how she had been able to capture his brothers pompous walk as well as his clear discomfort with the situation, but his own picture kept him quite. He looked horrible, tired, skinny, and so very… sick. 

Perhaps she noticed his discomfort because she closed the sketchbook. “Looks like Andreas is coming over to fetch you. I’ll talk to you later.” Andreas did come to fetch Sherlock. It was time for his tour. 


End file.
